They left the cauldron and the broom in the car suitably hidden under the rug, and then they returned to the summer-house. But it was not possible to feel miserable there for long. To John’s relief there was tea, which they ate sitting on the steps. Mrs Brown and Molly, and even Megs and Sara, were still sewing between mouthfuls. The Occupier and the other men teased the children in a friendly sort of way. It was all very jolly and cheerful, and by the time they had started on thesecond plate of cakes, they felt they knew everyone quite well. The last tunic was nearly done, and Rosemary could see by her mother’s smiling face that she was enjoying herself.
‘I must admit,’ she said to her daughter later, ‘that my heart sank when I thought I had got to sew this afternoon, just when I was off for a holiday. But it has been such fun sewing unusual sorts of clothes, and everyone is so friendly that it has not seemed like work at all.’
‘Your mother is a wonder,’ said the Occupier, and Rosemary flushed with pride. ‘I gather from Molly that not only can she work at twice everybody else’s speed, but that by some mystic process of hers called “cutting on the cross” she has transformed Oberon’s sleeves.’
‘And saved yards of stuff into the bargain,’ said Molly.
The children and Mrs Brown, as guests of honour, sat in the front row for the next performance. They were acting the fairy part ofA Midsummer Night’s Dream, and even John, who usually thought of Shakespeare as somebody invented by masters to harass school-boys, admitted that it was‘smashing’. They were transported by the fairy part, and they laughed and laughed at Bottom and his friends. When it was all over the Occupier took them all round the f?te again, and John won two coconuts and Rosemary a china kitten in a boot which she decided to give to Mrs Walker. And when it was time at last to meet Jeffries and the car, they were both so tired they could hardly keep their eyes open.
‘What a day!’ said John, as he and Rosemary flopped into the back seat.
‘Did you enjoy it, dears?’ asked Mrs Brown.
‘We shall never have such a day again!’ said Rosemary. ‘I wonder what Carbonel meant when he said he would see us at the full moon?’ she whispered to John.
‘I don’t suppose we shall know till tomorrow,’ he whispered back.
23
The Full Moon
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The next day Rosemary was looking pale.
‘Too much excitement,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘I wonder if perhaps you had better stay at home today, instead of coming with me to Tussocks?’
‘Oh, Mummy, please!’ begged Rosemary. ‘If you have nearly finished the sewing I shall hardly have any more time to play with John, and I have got such heaps to talk to him about. Besides, I think I ought to say “Thank you” to Mrs Pendlebury Parker, don’t you?’
Her mother smiled.‘Very well, Poppet. But it must be a really early bed for you tonight!’
Although Rosemary felt there was so much she wanted to talk over with John, when she reached Tussocks she found that by common consent they both avoided any reference to Carbonel or Mrs Cantrip, or anything magic at all. They played good, solid games like Cowboys and Indians all morning, and in the afternoon they built a tree house, which was fun, until Mrs Pendlebury Parker decided that it was not safe and made them take it down again.
When Rosemary and her mother reached home in the evening, Mrs Brown said, firmly:
‘Now, we will have supper straight away; scrambled eggs and jam tart, and then you can have your bath and hop into bed. You may take a book with you if you like.’
Rosemary had her bath in the usual bower of other people’s drying stockings, then she choseThe Wind in the Willows, kissed her mother good night and got into bed. But she could not read. She sat propped against the pillows with the book open before her, but her mind was not on the adventures of Toad and Mole and Rat. It would keep going over the events of the past three weeks. What fun it had all been. What would become of Mrs Cantrip? How would Carbonel win back his place at the head of his kingdom? She closed her eyes to think the better, but she must have fallen asleep, for when she opened them again it was dusk, and the book had slipped to the floor. Something dark and furry leapt on to her bed, and licked her cheek with a familiar rough tongue. She was wide awake at once.
‘Carbonel! I did so hope you would come! What are you going to do? Is it the Law Giving tonight?’
Carbonel was kneading the blanket with his front paws and purring rhythmically.‘Oh, wait a minute while I fetch the broom!’ She jumped out of bed and ran to the wardrobe. ‘Now then!’
‘It is, as you say, the Law Giving tonight. Would you like to come?’
‘Oh, may I? How lovely! Where is it? And how? And what about John? He would be terribly disappointed if he missed it!’
‘Patience, Rosemary. As to where, it will be on the roof of the Town Hall, where it has been at every full moon for four hundred years. And how? By Broom. The fact that the moon is full tonight will give it temporary life, and by Broom we will fetch John from Tussocks. But we must wait for the moon to rise. In the meantime you had better be composing instructions, and mind they are accurate,’ he went on in his old manner. ‘You can’t afford to make mistakes when you are flying high.’
Rosemary put on her old red dressing gown and her slippers with the bobbles on them; then she knelt on the chair by the window, with Carbonel on the sill beside her. The sky was darkening, and the vista of roofs stretched dim and shadowy, away into the distance. Down below she could see countless moving shapes.
‘Carbonel, look! Running along the top of the wall… hundreds of cats!’
‘My people!’ he said. ‘This is a night they will never forget. As yet they know nothing of my return. I thought it best to descend on an unsuspecting enemy. Only Malkin, my father’s friend and adviser, has seen me. He is an old, old animal.’
‘But I have never seen so many cats! Look at them! All running along the garden wall!’
There was a steady stream of animals, black, white, grey, and tabby, silently but purposefully trotting along the garden wall in the same direction, continually joined by other cats where other walls intersected.
‘This is one of the main roads from the outlying parts,’ said Carbonel.
The sky behind the rooftops was becoming lighter.
‘Look!’ said Carbonel. ‘The moon!’
As he spoke, a tiny segment of silver rose from a bank of clouds low on the horizon. Rosemary’s hand lay on the cat’s sleek back, and she felt him stiffen. He was making low, crooning, cat noises in his throat. As the moon rose majestically in sight – a superb moon, round as a pumpkin and golden as honey, filling the rooftop world with light, and deep, mysterious shadow – Carbonelrose to his feet, lifted his head and sniffed the air, and the crooning noise turned to a bubbling wail, which rose and fell, and rose again to a wild, high note which struck the ear like a trumpet call. Then it sank once again to silence. When the moon was sailing high above the cloud rack, he spoke.
‘To Broom, Rosemary!’
And Rosemary strode the quivering Broom with Carbonel balanced on the sadly diminished twigs behind her.
‘Go on, say it!’ he said. She took a deep breath and said:
If you please, my gallant Broom,
Take us straight to John’s bedroom.
And the Broom, which had been giving little hops under her, as though it longed to take the air, rose smoothly and silently, circled once round the room and was away through the window. Rosemary gripped with her knees, and screwed up her eyes and her toes. But the motion was smooth and pleasant, and soon she dared to open her eyes and look around her. They were flying high. They skimmed the weather-cock of All Saints’ Church, where she went on Sundays with her mother, they flew over the shopping centre, now empty and silent, with only here and there a lighted square of window, over the new housing estate and out over the moonlit country beyond. She was so fascinated by the shifting shapes beneath that she forgot to be frightened. The road wandered idly along, like a pale grey ribbon tossed there by some careless giant. Away to the south the river gleamed, a silver streak, and woods and houses, barns and ricks crouched like sleeping animals on the crazy paving that was the fields and meadows. Rosemary was so interested in watching it slip away from beneath her that she was quite surprised when Carbonel said, ‘We’re nearly there. Duck your head when we go in!’