Syracuse hated it. His front feet danced this way and that, trying to take him away from it. Klartch gave out another frightened “Weep, weep!”
“It’s all right,” Cat said to both of them. “It won’t hurt you now. Honestly.” He got down from Syracuse and found he was shaking as badly as the horse was. Klartch crept up to him, shaking too. “I wish you hadn’t followed me,” Cat said to him. “You nearly got killed.”
“Need to come too,” Klartch said.
Cat had half a mind to take them all back home to the Castle. But he had promised to meet Marianne and they were well over halfway by now. And he could tell, by the sound of the river and the feel of the meadow, that Mr Farleigh had been the centre that held the misdirection spells together. They were so weak now that they were almost gone. It would be easy to get to Woods House, except for – Cat looked up at the ugly stone oak, looming above them. There would be no getting Syracuse past that thing, he knew. Besides, it was right in the path and a terrible nuisance to anyone trying to go this way.
Cat steadied his trembling knees and sent the stone oak away somewhere else, somewhere it fitted in better, he had no idea where. It went with a soft rumble like thunder far off, followed by a small breeze full of dust from the path, river smell and bird noises. The willows rattled their leaves in it. For a moment, there were deep trenches in the path where the stone roots had been, but they began filling in almost at once. Sand and earth poured into the holes like water, and then hardened.
Cat waited until the path was back to the way it had been and then levitated Klartch up into Syracuse’s saddle. Klartch flopped across it with a gasp of surprise. One pair of legs hung down on each side, helplessly. Syracuse craned his head round and stared.
“It’s the best I can do,” Cat said to them. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Marianne looked up gladly as Cat came across the stubbly lawn, leading Syracuse. She was sad to see that Joe was not with him, but at least Cat was here. She had begun to think he was not coming.
“Friend of yours?” asked talkative Mr Adams. “That’s a fine piece of horseflesh he’s got there. Arab ancestry, I shouldn’t wonder. What’s he got on the saddle?”
Marianne wondered too, until Cat came near. She saw that Cat stared at Mr Adams much as she had done herself. “Oh, you’ve brought Klartch!” she said.
“He followed me. I had to bring him,” Cat said. He did not feel like explaining how lethal that had nearly been.
“I love your horse,” Marianne said. “He’s beautiful.” She went boldly up to rub Syracuse’s face. Cat watched a little anxiously, knowing what Syracuse could be like. But Syracuse graciously allowed Marianne to rub his nose and then pat his neck and Marianne said, “Ah, you like peppermints, do you? I’m afraid I —”
“Here you are,” Mr Adams said, producing a paper bag from an earthy pocket. “These are extra strong – he’ll like these. They call me Mr Adams,” he added to Cat. “Been in Princess Irene’s family for years.”
“How do you do?” Cat said politely, wondering how he would get a private word with Marianne with Mr Adams there. While Marianne fed Syracuse peppermints, he hauled Klartch off the saddle and dropped him in the grass – with a grunt from both of them: Klartch was heavy and landed heavily. Mr Adams stared at Klartch in some perplexity.
“I give up,” he said. “Is it a flying bird-dog, or what?”
“He’s a baby griffin,” Cat explained. He tried to smile at Mr Adams, but the word “flying” made him terribly anxious suddenly about Roger and Joe, and the smile was more of a grimace. He didn’t think that Mr Farleigh’s bullet had hit either of them, but it had certainly hit the flying machine somewhere, and one of them had yelled. Still, there was nothing he could do.
“Shall I look after the horse for you while you go indoors?” Mr Adams offered. “Second to gardening, I love tending to horses. He’ll be safe with me.”
Cat and Marianne exchanged relieved looks. Marianne had been wondering how they were going to talk in private too.
“I’ll look after this griffin fellow too, if you like,” Mr Adams offered.
“Thanks. I’ll take Klartch with me,” Cat said. He did not feel like letting Klartch out of his sight just then. He handed Syracuse over to Mr Adams, and managed to thank him, although he was nervous again, knowing what Syracuse could be like. But Syracuse bent his head to Mr Adams and seemed prepared to make a fuss of him, while Mr Adams murmured and made little cheeping whistles in reply.
It seemed to be all right. Marianne and Cat went to the open door of the conservatory, with Klartch lolloping after them. “Is something the matter?” Marianne said as they went. “You look pale. And you only talk in little jerks.”
Cat would have liked to tell Marianne all about his encounter with Mr Farleigh. He was almost longing to. But that strange thing happened in his head that made him so bad at telling people things, and all he could manage to say was, “I had a – a turn up with Gaffer Farleigh on the way.” And as soon as Marianne was nodding in perfect understanding, Cat was forced to change the subject. He leant towards her and whispered, “Is Mr Adams a gnome?”
Marianne choked on a giggle. “I don’t know!” she whispered back.
Cat was feeling much better and they were both trying not to laugh as they entered the conservatory. It was transformed. When Cat had last been here, the glass of the roof and walls had been too dirty to see through, and the floor had been coconut matting with dead plants standing about on it. Marianne could hardly remember it any other way. Now the glass sparkled and there were big green frondy plants, some of them with huge lily-like flowers, white and cream and yellow, which Jason must have brought here from his store. The floor that the plants stood on was a marvel of white, green and blue tiles, in a gentle eye-resting pattern. There were new cane chairs. Best of all, a small fountain – that must have been covered up by the old matting – was now playing, making a quiet chuckling and misting the fronds of the plants. The smell this brought out from the flowers reminded them both of Irene’s scent.
Marianne said wonderingly, “This must all have been underneath! How could Gammer have kept it all covered up?”
Thoroughly curious to know what the rest of the house was like now, they went on into the hall. The same tiles were here, blue, white and green, making the hall twice as light. To Marianne’s surprise, the tiles went on up the walls, to about the height of her shoulders, where she had only known dingy, knobbly cream paint before. Above the tiles, Uncle Charles had painted the walls a paler shade of the blue in the tiles. Marianne wondered if Uncle Charles had chosen it, or Irene. Irene, certainly. There were plants here too, one of them a whole tree. The stairs had been polished so that they gleamed, with a rich, moss-coloured strip of carpet down the middle.
Klartch had difficulty walking on the tiles. His front talons clattered and slid. His back feet, which were more like paws, skidded. Cat turned and waited for him.
Marianne, watching Klartch, said, “I suppose Gammer covered the tiles with matting because they were slippery. Or was it in case they got spoilt? What was your idea for helping me?”
Cat turned back to her, wishing it was a bigger, better idea. “Well,” he began.
But Jason came out of one of the rooms just then. “Oh, hello!” he said. “I didn’t hear you arrive. Welcome to the dez rez, both of you!”
And Irene came racing down the moss-carpeted stairs, crying out in delight. She seized Marianne and kissed her, hugged Cat and then knelt down to lift Klartch up by his feathery front legs so that she could rub her face on his beak. Klartch made little crooning noises at her in reply. “This is splendid!” Irene said. “Not many people can say that their very first visitor was a griffin!” She lowered Klartch down and looked anxiously up at Marianne. “I hope you don’t mind what we’ve done to the house.”
“Mind?” Marianne said. “It’s wonderful! Were these tiles always up the walls like this?” She went over and rubbed her hand across them. “S
mooth,” she said. “Lovely.”
“They were painted over,” Irene said. “When I discovered them under the paint, I just had to have it scraped off. I’m afraid the painting Mr Pinhoe wasn’t very pleased about the extra work. But I cleaned the tiles myself.”
Uncle Charles was an idiot then, Marianne thought. “It was worth it. They glow!”
“Ah, that’s Irene’s doing,” Jason said, with a proud, loving look towards his wife. “She’s inherited the dwimmer gift. Dwimmer,” he explained to Cat, “means that a person is in touch with the life in everything. They can bring it out even when it’s hidden. When Irene cleaned those tiles, she didn’t just take the paint and dirt of ages off them. She released the art that went to making them.”
A slight noise made Marianne look up at the stairs. Uncle Charles was standing near the top of them, in his paint-blotched overalls, looking outraged. None of the adult Pinhoes liked to hear the craft openly spoken of like this. Not even Uncle Charles, Marianne thought sadly. Uncle Charles was becoming more of a standard Pinhoe and less of a disappointment every day. Oh, I wish they’d let him go and study to be an artist, like he wanted to after he painted our inn sign! she thought.
Uncle Charles coughed slightly and came loudly down the wooden part of the stairs. Marianne knew that, although it looked as if Uncle Charles was trying to keep paint off the mossy carpet, what he was really doing was making a noise in order to stop Jason talking about dwimmer. “I’ve finished the undercoat in the small bathroom, madam,” he said to Irene. “I’ll be off to my lunch while it dries and come back to do the gloss this afternoon.”
“Thank you, Mr Pinhoe,” Irene said to him.
Jason said, trying to be friendly, “I don’t know how you do it, Mr Pinhoe. I’ve never known paint to dry as quickly as yours does.”
Uncle Charles just gave him a fixed and disapproving look and clumped across the tiles to the front door. The look, and Uncle Charles’s head with it, jerked a little when he saw Klartch. For a fraction of an instant, delight and curiosity jumped across his face. Then the disapproving looked settled back, stronger than ever, and Uncle Charles marched on, and away outside.
He left a slightly awkward silence behind him.
“Well,” Jason said at length, a bit too heartily, “I think we should show you all over the house.”
“I only came to find my cat really,” Marianne said.
“Jane James has got him,” Irene said. “He’s quite safe. Do come and see what we’ve done here!”
It was impossible to say no. Jason and Irene were both so proud of the place. They swept Cat and Marianne through into the front room, where the moss green chairs, new white walls and some of Irene’s design paintings on it in frames, made it look like a different room from the one where Gammer had shouted at the Farleighs. Then Cat and Marianne were swept to Jason’s den, full of books and leather, and Irene’s workroom, all polished wood and a sloping table under the window, with an antique stand for paints and pencils that Marianne knew Dad would have admired: it was so cleverly designed.
After this they were whirled through the dining room and then on upstairs, into a moss green corridor with bedrooms and bathrooms opening off it. Irene had had some of the walls moved, so that now there were bedrooms, sunny and elegant, which had not been there when Marianne last saw the house. The trickling cistern cabinet had become a white warm cupboard that was full of towels and made no noise at all. Uncle Simeon, Marianne thought, had done wonders up here, sprained ankle and all.
“We’re still thinking what to do with the attics,” Irene said, “but they need a lot of sorting out first.”
“I want to check all those herbs for seeds. Some of them are quite rare and may well grow, given the right spells,” Jason explained as he swept everyone downstairs again.
Marianne sent Cat an urgent look on the way down. Cat pretended to be waiting for Klartch in order to look reassuringly back. They had to let Jason and Irene finish showing them the house. It was no good trying to talk before then.
Down the passage from the hall, which turned out to be lined with the same blue, green and white tiles, Jason flung open the door to the kitchen. More of those tiles over the sink, Marianne saw, and in a line round the room; but mostly the impression was of largeness, brightness and comfort. There was a rusty red floor, which the place had always needed, in Marianne’s opinion, and of course the famous table, now scrubbed white, white, white.
Nutcase leered smugly at her from Jane James’s bony knees. Jane James was sitting in a chair close to the stove, stirring a saucepan with one hand and reading a magazine she held in the other.
“I’ve taken the scullery for my distillery,” Jason said. “Let me show —”
“Lunch in half an hour,” Jane James replied.
“I’ll tell Mr Adams,” Irene said.
Jane James stood up and put the magazine on the table and Nutcase on the magazine. Nutcase sat there demurely until Klartch shuffled and clacked his way round the door. Then Nutcase stood up in an arch and spat.
“Don’t be a silly cat,” Jane James said, as if she saw creatures like Klartch every day. “It’s only a baby griffin. Will he eat biscuits?” she asked Cat. She seemed to know at once that he was responsible for Klartch.
“I’ll eat biscuits,” Jason said. “She makes the best biscuits in this world,” he told Marianne.
“Yes, but not for you. You’ll spoil your lunch,” Jane James said. “You and Irene go and get cleaned up ready.”
Cat was not surprised that Jason and Irene meekly scurried out of the kitchen. Nor was he surprised when Jane James gave a secret smile as she watched them go. He thought she was quite certainly a sorceress. She reminded him a lot of Miss Bessemer, who was.
Her biscuits were delicious, big and buttery. Klartch liked them as much as Cat and Marianne did and kept putting his beak up for more. Nutcase looked down from the table at him, disgustedly.
After about her tenth biscuit, Marianne found herself searching Jane James’s face for the humour she was sure was hidden there. “That time you brought Nutcase home in a basket,” she said curiously, “you weren’t cross about him really, were you?”
“Not at all,” Jane James said. “He likes me and I like him. I’d gladly keep him here if he’s too much trouble for you. But I kept seeing you chasing around, worrying about him. Did you get any holiday to yourself this year?”
Marianne’s face crumpled a little as she thought of her story of Princess Irene and her cats, still barely started. But she said bravely, “Our family likes to keep children busy.”
“You’re no child. You’re a full-grown enchantress,” Jane James retorted. “Don’t they notice? And I don’t see any of your cousins very busy. Riding their bikes up and down and yelling seems to me how busy they are.” She stood up and planted Nutcase into Marianne’s arms. “There you are. Tell Mr Adams to come for his lunch on your way out.”
You had to go when Jane James did that, Cat thought. She was quite a tartar. They thanked her for the biscuits and went out into the passage again. As they turned left towards the hall, they nearly collided with a person who appeared to come out of the tiled wall.
“Ooops-a-la!” that person said.
They stared at him. Both of them had a moment when they thought they were looking at Mr Adams and that Mr Adams had shrunk. He had the same tufts of hair and the same wrinkled brown face with the big ears. But Mr Adams had not been wearing bright green, blue and white chequered trousers and a moss green waistcoat. And Mr Adams was about the same height as Cat, who was small for his age, where this person only came up to Cat’s waist.
Klartch clacked forward with great interest.
The little man fended him off with a hand that appeared to be all long thin fingers. “Now, now, now, Klartch. I’m not food for griffins. I’m only a skinny old househob.”
“A househob!” Marianne said. “When did you move in here?”
“About two thousand years ago, when
your first Gaffer’s hall was built in this place,” the little man replied. “You might say I’ve always been here.”
“How come I’ve never seen you before, then?” Marianne asked.
The little man looked up at her. His eyes were big and shiny and full of green sadness. “Ah,” he said, “but I’ve seen you, Miss Marianne. I’ve seen most things while I’ve been sealed inside these walls these many long years, until the dwimmer-lady, Princess Irene, let me out.”
“You mean – under the cream paint?” Marianne said. “Did Gammer seal you in?”
“Not she. It was more than paint and longer ago than that,” the househob said. “It was in those days after the devout folk came. After that, the folks in charge here named me and all my kind wicked and ungodly, and they set spells to imprison us – all of us, in houses, fields and woods – and told everyone we were gone for good. Though, mind you, I never could see why these devout folk could believe on the one hand that God made all, and on the other hand call us ungodly – but there you go. It was done.” He spread both huge hands and brought his pointed shoulders up in a shrug. Then he bowed to Marianne and turned and bowed to Cat. “Now, if you’ll forgive me, dwimmer folk both, I believe Jane James has my lunch ready. And she doesn’t hold with me coming in through her kitchen wall. I have to use the door.”
Amazed and bemused, Cat and Marianne stepped back out of the househob’s way. He set off at a crablike trot towards the kitchen. Then turned back anxiously. “You didn’t eat all the biscuits, did you?”
“No, there’s a big tinful,” Cat told him.
“Ah. Good.” The househob turned towards the kitchen door. He did not open it. They watched him walk through it, much as Marianne had watched Nutcase walk through the wall in Furze Cottage. Nutcase, at the sight, squirmed indignantly in Marianne’s arms. He seemed to think he was the only one who should be able to do that sort of thing.
Cat and Marianne looked at one another, but could think of nothing to say.
It was not until they were halfway across the hall that Marianne said, “You think you have an idea for what I can do about Gammer?”
The Chrestomanci Series Page 137