Carbonel: The King of Cats

by Barbara Sleigh

  ‘What a fuss humans have to make over everything,’ the cat said scornfully as they collected the sandwich papers and turned to look for a rubbish basket. ‘We don’t go picking up our fishbones when we’ve eaten the fish. We just eat the bones as well. Tidy and economical.’

  ‘Well, I’m blowed if I’m going to eat all this grease-proof paper,’ said John. ‘Come on, let’s try all the artistic-looking shops at the top of the High Street in turn.’

  They walked to the Cathedral and sat on a seat.

  There certainly were at least six likely shops which had arisen like cream to the top of the highway, where it widened in front of the Cathedral.

  ‘Now wait a minute,’ said John. ‘What are we going to say when we get inside? We can’t go blinding in and just demand to see their coal scuttles.’

  ‘I tell you what,’ said Rosemary. ‘Let’s take it in turns to engage the people in conversation, like they do in books, and find out what sort of fires they have. You don’t want coal scuttles if you have gas or electric fires.’

  ‘You are not an unintelligent child,’ said Carbonel. Rosemary blushed with pleasure. He went on, ‘I will listen carefully, and if they say “Coal”, go on engaging them in conversation and I will slip round the counter and see if I can spot the cauldron anywhere about.’

  ‘All right,’ said Rosemary. ‘Bags I the first shop, because I thought of it!’

  The shop at the end of the little terrace which faced the Cathedral was called ‘The Bijouterie’. The window was full of brooches made of fishbones, and boxes and ash-trays ornamented with barbola. There was a big pot of dried poppy heads enamelled red and blue. Rosemary went inside before she had really thought how you ‘engage people in conversation’. Characters in books never explain how this is done – they seem to be born knowing how to do it. The woman behind the counter said briskly, ‘Yes, dear, what do you want?’

  She was a thin person in an embroidered peasant blouse, with her hair cut in a fringe. Rosemary’s mind went quite blank. She stood stupidly just looking, while she thought of something to say. Only at a hissed ‘Go on!’ from John, who was standing by the doorway with the broom, did she rouse herself. Pointing to a tray of postcards she gulped, ‘Please may I look at these?’

  ‘Sixpence each,’ said the woman. ‘They are done by a local artist. So much nicer than a photo, I always think.’

  Rosemary looked at them doubtfully. Sixpence seemed a lot of money to pay for a postcard, and the pictures were so fuzzy that it was difficult to tell what they were about. She looked at them in rather desperate silence. Finally she chose one that she did recognize as the Market Cross, and regretfully handed over sixpence. Carbonel rubbed himself against her bare legs. He could not talk to her, because she had not got the broom, but she knew quite well what he meant. Rosemary took a deep breath and said:

  ‘What lovely weather! Not… not at all the sort of day for sitting by the fire!’

  The woman looked a little surprised but agreed politely, adding – as if she knew what they wanted to discover – ‘Leastways, not with gas the price it is. Though I must say I like a bit of fire in the evenings.’

  Rosemary took the card and ran out of the shop, where John was waiting.

  ‘Gas!’ she said triumphantly, and showed John the postcard.

  ‘I thought we could send it to your sister. It’s not that way up, silly! It cost sixpence.’

  ‘Well, the artist shouldn’t have done it on a day when there was such a thick fog. I say, you did look funny when you just stood there gawping.’

  ‘Well, I found out, anyway. It’s your turn now.’

  There was a great number of brass ornaments in the next shop – door knockers and nut crackers and ash trays and little bells made like ladies with crinoline skirts, and proverbs like ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ done in poker work. John handed the broom over to Rosemary and marched in. A tall thin man was flicking a shelf full of china ornaments with a feather duster.

  ‘Can you tell me the price of those brass toasting forks, please?’ said John.

  ‘Ten and six,’ said the man, turning from his dusting.

  ‘Oh,’ said John. ‘The thing is that the uncle I have in mind is rather fussy about his toast. He might not like it made with a brass toasting fork. He always insists on a coal fire to make it by, because he says it tastes so much better.’

  ‘Well, I swear by electric,’ said the man. ‘We’ve got one of those things that shoots the toast out when it’s done.’

  ‘Don’t you ever make it by a coal fire?’

  ‘We haven’t got one in the house. My wife says they’re dirty. Though I must say they are more homey.’

  ‘Just what I think,’ said John. ‘Do you know, on the whole I think perhaps my uncle wouldn’t like his toast made with brass, so I won’t get the toasting fork. But thank you all the same,’ and John left the shop.

  ‘You see, it’s quite easy, really,’ he said cockily, ‘and I didn’t spend any money.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think you ought to have made up all that stuff about your uncle,’ said Rosemary.

  ‘I didn’t,’ said John virtuously. ‘I have got an uncle who is fussy about his toast. Go on. You had better do that embroidery shop at the corner, and if you must buy something, get photographs of the cathedral, they’re cheaper.’

  But here they drew a blank. The woman in charge had several customers and refused to be engaged in conversation. The children persevered, going from one shop to another with varying success, and wherever they found someone who owned to having a coal fire Carbonel padded silently behind the counter. Once or twice he was shooed ignominiously out. Working their way down the High Street, they passed the Town Hall and the Cottage Hospital, right down to the railway station, where there were only offices and a few little shops that sold newspapers and tobacco. By this time they had inquired at eleven shops. It was well into the afternoon, and they felt tired, hot, and discouraged. Not a trace of the cauldron had they found.

  ‘I can’t go another step!’ said Rosemary. ‘It feels hours since we had our sandwiches. I tell you what. We passed a tea shop a little farther back where p’raps we could sit down and have ices. I’ve got sixpence of my shilling left, and threepence of my pocket money.’

  John was only too willing, so they retraced their steps and went into the tea shop. It was called the Copper Kettle, and there was a beautifully polished kettle in the window flanked by plates of homemade cakes. Lunch had been cleared away, and a young woman in a chintz overall was laying tables for tea. The walls were panelled with what looked like oak, and it was cool and pleasant inside. The large strawberry ices slid like nectar down their thirsty throats. The children found that by putting the broom on the floor underneath the table, and slipping off a sandal each, so that their bare feet rested on the handle, they could both hear what Carbonel had to say at the same time. He sat under the table to be as inconspicuous as possible.

  ‘I’ve just thought of something awful!’ said Rosemary. ‘Suppose the artistic lady didn’t want to use the cauldron as a coal-scuttle at all? Then it doesn’t matter what sort of fires all those people have, and our whole day has been wasted.’

  ‘Golly!’ said John, so appalled by this idea that he stopped with a spoon full of ice-cream half-way to his mouth. ‘You mean that they may be using the cauldron for… well, standing ferns… or bathing the baby?’

  ‘Not in the shops we went to,’ said Carbonel from under the table. ‘Most of them had a cat of some kind, and I took the precaution of getting into conversation in most places. Quite civil most of them were. One of ’em even gave me her saucer of milk which, considering that strawberry ice-cream doesn’t seem to be coming my way, is just as well.’ And if a cat could sniff, that is what Carbonel would have done.

  ‘But Carbonel, darling! Would you like ice-cream?’ asked Rosemary in distress.

  ‘Not a bit. But I should like to be asked,’ he said in an injured voice.

 
; Rosemary held a dab of ice-cream under the table on her finger. Carbonel licked it off, but it made him sneeze.

  ‘We seem to have spent an awful lot of money,’ said John.

  ‘I didn’t seem able to engage people in conversation unless I bought something,’ said Rosemary. ‘Do you think your sister will like nine photographs of the cathedral?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘The postage would cost one and sixpence, so I shall do them up in brown paper and send them for tuppence ha’-penny. She will probably think I’ve gone potty,’ he added gloomily, scraping the last drops of runny ice-cream from the edges of the dish. ‘Well, what on earth do we do now?’

  16

  The Cauldron

  There was a gloomy silence while they tried to think what would be the best thing to do. Rosemary was the first to speak.

  ‘Well, I think…’ she began. But she never said what she thought, because it was then it happened.

  Shopping ladies with parcels were beginning to come in for an early tea, and the chintz-overalled waitress was hurrying past their table with a tray laden with tea things when she caught her foot against the broom, tottered for one horrifying moment and fell with a crash. The shopping ladies stopped talking and turned round. John and Rosemary jumped up and helped her to her feet. Rosie began to pick up the broken china, and tried to rescue the cakes and buttered toast that were lying forlornly in a lake of tea.

  ‘I’m so awfully sorry!’ said Rosemary in distress. ‘I do hope you did not hurt yourself? Do sit down for a minute.’

  ‘We will clear it all up,’ said John. ‘I’m afraid it was our fault.’

  ‘I should think it was!’ said the waitress crossly. ‘And I don’t know what Maggie will say to all this broken china! Why couldn’t you put your walking stick in the umbrella stand by the door?’ She rubbed her bruised shin as she spoke.

  ‘Look!’ whispered Rosemary to John. ‘Look over there!’

  John turned and stared in the same direction as Rosemary. Peering anxiously round the door that led to the kitchen was a plump, elderly woman with hair plaited in two buns, one over each ear. She was wearing an apron, but under it was an obviously hand-woven jacket.

  ‘Are you all right, Florrie?’ she said anxiously, and then she saw the mess on the floor and gave a moan. ‘The china, Florrie. How could you!’

  By this time the broken tea things had been collected on the tray.

  ‘Please sit down, ladies,’ she went on. ‘I will bring you more tea in a minute. Florrie, you had better get a cloth.’

  ‘Let me get it, because it was our fault,’ said Rosemary. ‘Don’t do that!’ she said to John, who had dug her rather hard in the ribs. But all that John said was, ‘Look at Carbonel!’

  The black cat was standing near the door that led to the street, his tail straight up in the air and his back arched, kneading the matting with his front paws and making strange crooning noises in his throat.

  ‘What is the matter with him?’ asked Rosemary anxiously. But John was staring as fixedly as Carbonel.

  ‘Over there in the corner! The umbrella stand!’

  In the corner by the door, holding two umbrellas and a walking stick, was a fat black pot with three legs, and a handle over the top.

  ‘It’s the witch’s cauldron, isn’t it?’ breathed Rosemary.

  The cat was quiet now. He turned and stalked towards them with his head held high.

  ‘Of course it is,’ said John. ‘I’d know it anywhere, even got up like that!’

  Its well-rounded sides gleamed with black lead, and the copper band round it had been polished till it glowed.

  ‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘there is the patch in the bottom where it began to leak. Well, what are we waiting for? You had better pick it up and get out while this to-do is going on.’

  Rosemary was shocked.

  ‘We can’t just take it! That would be stealing. We must think of a plan for getting it honestly somehow. But first we must help to clear up. You collect the buttered toast that skidded over there, and I’ll go and fetch another cloth.’

  She hurried through the door into the kitchen. The waitress passed her coming out with a dustpan and brush, and only the one she had referred to as Maggie was there. She looked up as Rosemary came in.

  ‘Go away, little girl. As if you had not done enough damage for today!’

  ‘I know,’ said Rosemary penitently. ‘It’s because I’m so sorry about it that I thought I’d come and get a cloth and help to clear up. I will polish the floor again when it’s dry if you will let me.’

  ‘It’s not the floor that matters, it’s the china.’

  There was a quiver in the woman’s voice, and to Rosemary’s horror her round face suddenly crumpled and she began to cry.

  ‘Oh, don’t!’ said Rosemary. ‘Don’t cry, please! Whatever is the matter? Do tell me, and then I’m sure it will make you feel better. I’ve got a clean hankie somewhere, I know I have.’

  The woman did not take the handkerchief, but she stopped crying and wiped her eyes with her own.

  ‘It’s the china,’ she said jerkily, as she dabbed at her face. ‘The girls we have hired to wash up broke so much that we decided to try and manage without them, and besides that we couldn’t really afford to go on paying their wages. Business has been so bad lately. Florrie and I are on our feet all day, but it is no use. And because there were only the two of us we needed so much more china because the washing up was slower.’

  ‘But why don’t you buy some more?’ asked Rosemary.

  ‘Because we haven’t enough money, and neither of the china shops will give us any more credit. But I don’t know why I’m telling you all this!’ She gave a watery smile and dabbed at her face again with her handkerchief. ‘There is a big Women’s Institute rally this afternoon at the Temperance Hall, and I’d hoped for quite a lot of customers. The cakes are made all ready. But what is the use of customers if we have not enough china for them to eat off?’ Miss Maggie sniffed ominously again.

  ‘I see,’ said Rosemary slowly. ‘You mean that if you had more china, quite a lot of it, that you would earn a great deal of money this afternoon?’

  ‘I’d give anything I’ve got for some more china. You see, that’s not all.’

  ‘Oh dear. Is there some more?’ Miss Maggie nodded.

  ‘This afternoon my brother was coming to see how we are getting on. He put up the money for the tea shop in the first place, and if he sees that we’re busy he will probably help us out a bit, but if he thinks it is being a failure he’ll say it’s throwing good money after bad. Oh, well,’ she went on, ‘it’s no use bothering you with our troubles.’ And she turned heavily to the sink, looking so dejected that Rosemary said:

  ‘Oh, please cheer up. I might be able to help. About the china, I mean. But I must talk to my friends first.’

  She ran out of the kitchen, to find John waiting impatiently for her.

  ‘What have you been doing all this time?’ he asked crossly.

  ‘Hush, I’ll tell you. Come outside, quickly!’

  They hurried out and turned down a little passage that ran down the side of the shop.

  ‘Carbonel,’ said Rosemary. ‘Now we have got the cauldron, can it do some magic – grant wishes and things?’

  Carbonel considered. ‘It’s a bit irregular. You don’t belong to the Sinister Sisterhood, but the cauldron might do it to oblige me. But what for?’

  Rosemary told them about the Women’s Institute rally, and the broken china, and the brother who was not going to throw good money after bad, and then she added:

  ‘… And Miss Maggie said that she would give everything she had got if she had enough china for this afternoon. So you see, if we could help I believe she would let us have the cauldron.’

  Carbonel trotted off without a word.

  17

  The Wishing Magic

  In a few minutes Carbonel was back again, looking very pleased with himself.

  ‘It’s all
right. I’ve persuaded it to do just one Wishing Magic to oblige. It’s a bit risky on account of the poor thing really being a bit past it, what with the Pot Mender, and so on. But it will do what it can.’

  ‘How exciting!’ said John. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Well, wishing spells are Rainbow Magic. But, of course, you know that?’

  John and Rosemary both shook their heads. ‘You don’t? Good gracious! That’s how the story began that there is a pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow, simply because gold is what so many people wish for. The whole tale is just superstition, but that is how it started. Well, of course we must make a Rainbow Brew. Can you do that, do you think?’

  Again Rosemary shook her head. ‘But I’ll do anything you tell me to!’

  ‘I can’t think what they teach you at school,’ said the cat severely. ‘Every Witch’s Kitten knows how to do that. You mix seven liquids of the seven colours of the rainbow. It doesn’t much matter what, so long as the colours are right. That is why they let the kittens do it. And then, when it’s nicely simmering, you say the Wishing Words… if only I can remember them. I’ve heard HER say them often enough.’

  Carbonel sat down with his tail neatly curled round his paws and closed his eyes.

  ‘Oh, don’t go to sleep now,’ said John, dancing with impatience. The cat opened his eyes very wide.