On the shelf which had once housed pots of geraniums and primulas and lacy ferns, before a curtain of blue flowers, sat Carbonel. Beside him was a snow-white Persian, and between them were two kittens, one coal-black with white paws and the other tortoise-shell. All four sat quite still with their tails wrapped neatly around their front paws from left to right. The children hesitated by the open door. A blue flower fell silently between the kittens, and the black one raised a paw as if to pat it.
‘Calidor!’ said Carbonel sternly, and the kitten instantly wrapped his tail round his paws again, as if that would keep them out of mischief.
‘Good morning, Rosemary. Good morning, John.’
‘Good morning,’ said the children together, and John, to his surprise, found himself adding, ‘Sir.’
‘My dear,’ said Carbonel, turning to the white cat. ‘I have great pleasure in presenting my two friends, John and Rosemary.’
The white cat gazed at them with wide, faraway blue eyes and bowed her head graciously. ‘My husband has often spoken of you. His friends will always be mine.’
‘Thank you,’ said John rather lamely.
‘Present the children, my love,’ said Blandamour. Carbonel bent his head in acknowledgement.
‘My son, Prince Calidor, and my daughter, Princess Pergamond. Make your bows, my children.’
The two kittens stood up, and with back legs splayed out and small tails erect, made rather wobbly bows. John bobbed his head, and Rosemary lifted the skirt of her nightdress and made a little curtsy.
‘I give my children into your care,’ said Carbonel. ‘Protect their nine lives as if they were your own. And you, my children, repeat the royal rules each day and put them into practice.’
‘Yes, Father,’ said the kittens in shrill chorus.
‘And obey John and Rosemary in all things.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘Remember, they are in your charge and you are in theirs.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘And when I come back, let me hear nothing to your discredit.’
The black kitten, whose eyes had wandered to the drifting blue flowers again, began to say ‘Yes, Father,’ and hastily changed it to ‘No.’
Carbonel turned to Blandamour. ‘My love, it is time for me to go. Come with me to the crossroads and see me on my way.’
The black cat jumped silently to the tiled floor and went out into the sunlit garden, and Blandamour followed. John and Rosemary, watching them leap to the top of the garden wall, ran to wave good-bye. Standing on the garden roller, their chins level with the top of the wall, they could see Carbonel and Blandamour growing smaller and smaller as they trotted along the wall. It skirted the end of the gardens of number one hundred, number ninety-nine and number ninety-eight. At number ninety-seven, the wall curved, and the two cats disappeared from view.
‘Well, that’s that!’ said John, jumping down from the roller and wiping the moss from his hands on to his pyjamas.
‘Come on. Let’s get back to the kittens. Aren’t they gorgeous!’ said Rosemary.
They ran back to the greenhouse. To their surprise, only the tortoise-shell kitten was to be seen. She was standing on her hind paws on a flower pot, peering into an old watering can.
‘Where’s the other one? Where’s Calidor?’ asked Rosemary, looking round anxiously.
‘He’s in here,’ said Pergamond in a muffled voice, because she was still peering into the can. ‘It sounds as though he’s paddling. Why don’t you answer, Calidor?’
There was a splash and a faint mew. John rushed to the watering can and, putting in his hand, lifted out a bedraggled kitten, dripping with dirty water and mewing pitifully.
‘You poor little thing!’ said Rosemary, trying to wipe off the slime with her nightdress.
But the kitten only whimpered, ‘Where’s Woppit? Want Woppit!’
‘What on earth is Woppit?’ asked John.
‘Here be old Woppit, my pretty dears!’ said a voice behind them, and there in the doorway was a dusty, dishevelled, elderly tabby cat.
‘Bother!’ said Pergamond crossly.
‘As if they could keep old Woppit away! “Too big for a nurse now,” they said. But I knows better! Me that’s looked after ’em since before their blessed blue eyes was open. They thought they’d hoodwinked old Woppit and whisked you away without her knowing. But I smells here, and I asks there, and sure enough, I’ve found my little furry sweetings! And where’s my precious princeling puss?’
All the time she was talking, Woppit was purring loudly and comfortably. But when she caught sight of Calidor, bedraggled and miserable in Rosemary’s lap, her untidy fur bristled with indignation.
‘What have the horrid humans been doing to you then, my pet? I knew it all along! I never did hold with humans!’
‘We aren’t wicked, even if we are humans!’ said John indignantly. ‘And we didn’t do anything!’
‘It was Calidor’s fault,’ said Pergamond virtuously. ‘We were hungry, and I only said I thought there might be sardines in the water at the bottom of the can, and he was looking to see, and he fell in. He was only doing this.’
She put her front paws on the rim of the can, and heaving her stumpy hind legs up the side, tried to stand on the rim. John’s hand shot out again just in time to stop her from falling in as her brother had done. He set her firmly down on the ground.
‘But there weren’t any sardines,’ said Calidor, who was beginning to revive. ‘Only a lot of smelly water.’ He sneezed violently. ‘I think I’ve lost a life,’ he went on with gloomy satisfaction. ‘You’ll catch it when Father hears!’
‘I’m hungry,’ mewed Pergamond. ‘I want my breakfast!’
‘Regular meals they’re used to, like any well brought-up kittens. There’s some people takes on a job without so much as knowing the first thing about it.’ Woppit looked sourly at John and Rosemary.
‘Look here,’ said John angrily, ‘are you suggesting that Rosie and I aren’t capable of looking after a couple of kittens?’
‘Well then, which of you is going to lick my little princeling clean? And no licking around the corners, mind!’
‘Lick him!’ said Rosemary in horror, looking at the kitten’s matted fur.
‘That’s what I said. You’ll never get him clean without. Either I licks, or you licks, and if I stays and licks, I stays for good!’ said Woppit. ‘Which is it to be?’
‘I should have thought a bath –’ began Rosemary. But at the word ‘bath’ the kittens set up such a mewing, and Woppit’s comforting was so noisy, that the children could not hear themselves speak. They slipped outside the greenhouse and shut the door behind them quite firmly.
‘Whew!’ said John. ‘I’m beginning to see what Carbonel means about the kittens being “high spirited”.’
‘Look here,’ interrupted Rosemary, ‘I think we should find Woppit very useful. After all, we can’t sit and hold their paws all day long.’
‘Yes, but I refuse to have an old tabby cat ordering me around,’ said John.
‘I don’t think she’ll try if we make her see that we only want to do our best for the kittens.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said John. ‘Suppose I run back upstairs and get them some milk, and you see what you can do with old Woppit.’ John ran.
When Rosemary went back into the greenhouse, Woppit was already vigorously licking a sulky Calidor. She eyed Rosemary suspiciously, but she did not stop.
‘Please, Woppit,’ said Rosemary humbly, ‘John and I want you to stay and show us how to look after Prince Calidor and Princess Pergamond, if you will.’