Charmed Life - Diana Wynne Jones [3]
Chrestomanci
“What did your pa say to him?” Mrs. Sharp wondered, curious and awestruck. “Well—what do you think, dearie?”
Gwendolen held her hands spread out above the letters, rather as if she was warming them at a fire. Both her little fingers twitched. “I don’t know. They feel important—especially the first one and the last one—awfully important.”
“Who’s Chrestomanci?” Cat asked. It was a hard name to say. He said it in pieces, trying to remember the way Mrs. Sharp had said it: KREST—OH—MAN—SEE. “Is that the right way?”
“Yes, that’s right—and never you mind who he is, my love,” said Mrs. Sharp. “And important’s a weak word for it, dearie. I wish I knew what your pa had said. Something not many people’d dare say, by the sound of it. And look what he got in return! Three genuine signatures! Mr. Nostrum would give his eyes for those, dearie. Oh, you’re in luck! He’ll teach you for those all right! So would any necromancer in the country.”
Gleefully, Mrs. Sharp began packing the things away in the box again. “What have we here?” A little red book of matches had fallen out of the bundle of business letters. Mrs. Sharp took it up carefully and, quite as carefully, opened it. It was less than half full of flimsy cardboard matches. But three of the matches had been burned, without being torn out of the book first. The third one along was so very burned that Cat supposed it must have set light to the other two.
“Hm,” said Mrs. Sharp. “I think you’d better keep this, dearie.” She passed the little red book to Gwendolen, who put it in the pocket of her dress along with the earrings. “And what about you having this, my love?” Mrs. Sharp said to Cat, remembering that he had a claim too. She gave him the spray of white heather. Cat wore it in his buttonhole until it fell to pieces.
• • •
Living with Mrs. Sharp, Gwendolen seemed to expand. Her hair seemed brighter gold, her eyes deeper blue, and her whole manner was glad and confident. Perhaps Cat contracted a little to make room for her—he did not know. Not that he was unhappy. Mrs. Sharp was quite as kind to him as she was to Gwendolen. Town Councillors and their wives called several times a week and patted him on the head in the parlor. They sent him and Gwendolen to the best school in Wolvercote. Cat was happy there. The only drawback was that Cat was left-handed, and schoolmasters always punished him if they caught him writing with his left hand. But they did that at all the schools Cat had been to, and he was used to it. He had dozens of friends. All the same, at the heart of everything, he felt lost and lonely. So he clung to Gwendolen, because she was the only family he had.
Gwendolen was often rather impatient with him, though usually she was too busy and happy to be downright cross. “Just leave me alone, Cat,” she would say. “Or else.” Then she would pack exercise books into a music case and hasten next door for a lesson with Mr. Nostrum.
Mr. Nostrum was delighted to teach Gwendolen for the letters. Mrs. Sharp gave him one every term for a year, starting with the last. “Not all at once, in case he gets greedy,” she said. “And we’ll give him the best last.”
Gwendolen made excellent progress. Such a promising witch was she, indeed, that she skipped the First Grade Magic exam and went straight on to the Second. She took the Third and Fourth grades together just after Christmas and, by the following summer, she was starting on Advanced Magic. Mr. Nostrum regarded her as his favorite pupil—he told Mrs. Sharp so over the wall—and Gwendolen always came back from her lessons with him pleased and golden and glowing. She went to Mr. Nostrum two evenings a week, with her magic case under her arm, just as many people might go to music lessons. In fact, music lessons were what Mrs. Sharp put Gwendolen down as having, on the accounts she kept for the Town Council. Since Mr. Nostrum never got paid, except by the letters, Cat thought this was rather dishonest of Mrs. Sharp.
“I have to put something by for my old age,” Mrs. Sharp told him crossly.