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!’
[????????: _4.jpg]
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 chair, 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.’