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!’
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.’
‘But we don’t –’ began John.
‘That’s a good thing, because you can’t. There’s no room. Apartments I said, and I’m not having togetherments, not with nobody.’
Rosemary looked hopelessly at John. They seemed no nearer to the real object of their visit.
‘Mrs Cantrip,’ interrupted John firmly. ‘We want to ask you something. It’s about Carbonel!’
Mrs Cantrip ceased speaking in mid-sentence and stopped rocking the chair. For a minute, there was complete silence in the dark little kitchen.
‘That animal again!’ said Mrs Cantrip, in a hoarse whisper. ‘Who are you?’
‘We are John and Rosemary. Don’t you remember?
When you retired from being a witch last summer, you sold me your old broom and your cat, Carbonel, and John and I set him free from your spell to be King of the Cats again. We want you to help us.’
The knuckles of Mrs Cantrip’s bony hands showed white where she held the arms of the rocking chair, and her small eyes bored into them like needles.
‘Oh, ah! I remember the pair of you now. Interfering busybodying children. What do you want?’
‘Carbonel is in trouble,’ said Rosemary. ‘At least I’m pretty sure he is, and he can’t make us understand. Won’t you help us?’
‘Why should I help Carbonel?’ said the old woman, in a voice as cold as steel. ‘Did he ever help me? Not him. He hampered me at every turn! Besides,’ she added sulkily, ‘I’ve gone out of business, you know that. Broom, books, cauldron – all gone, and everything as dull as puddle water.’
‘What about the dishwater at The Copper Kettle? How did you make it turn red and green?’ said John accusingly.
Mrs Cantrip’s eyes wavered.
‘That wasn’t what you’d call magic. Not real magic,’ she muttered. ‘Just using up odds and ends of spells I’d got left over. You wouldn’t have me be wasteful, now would you?’ she said virtuously. ‘I couldn’t throw them away. Some dear little child might have picked them up, and then what would have happened to it?’ She grinned wickedly. ‘It’s nearly all gone. I just use a pinch here and a spoonful there, to liven things up a bit. And that reminds me, where’s that apron?’
She pounced on the bundle that was lying on the table, shook out the apron, and felt feverishly in the pocket.
‘It’s gone! It isn’t here! My last little bit of Prism Powder! What have you done with it?’
Rosemary felt hurriedly in her own pocket. The little ball of paper she had picked up from the floor of The Copper Kettle was still there.
‘If I give you back your Prism Powder, will you tell us what we can do to understand Carbonel when he talks to us?’
There was a pause.
‘All right, I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you and willing!’ said Mrs Cantrip, eagerly holding out her hand.
‘Wait a minute,’ said John. ‘You shall have it when you have told us what to do and not before!’
Mrs Cantrip pursed her mouth to the size of a keyhole and rubbed the side of her great nose with a bony finger.
‘I can’t do it myself, not now. That would never do. I know. I’ll give you a prescription and you must have it made up at the chemist.’
‘At the chemist!’ said John.
Mrs Cantrip ignored him. She was ferreting round in the drawer of the table, among bits of string and candle ends. Presently she fished out a crumpled bit of paper, and fetching a bottle of ink and a rather moth-eaten quill pen from the mantelpiece, sat down at the table. For a minute she sucked the end of her pen, then she chuckled, smoothed out the paper, and began writing with great speed. When she had finished, she folded the paper and handed it to Rosemary.