Charmed Life - Diana Wynne Jones [56]
“No, because it’s Gwendolen he’s fond of,” Cat explained. Something told him that Mr. Nostrum would be almost as little pleased as Chrestomanci to find that Gwendolen had departed for another world. “And he’s got some kind of plans for her.”
“Yes, this briefing,” Janet said irritably. “He obviously thinks I know all about it. If you ask me, Cat, it’s just one more damned thing!”
Nothing could convince Janet that salvation was at hand. Cat was quite sure it was. He went to sleep rejoicing, and woke up happy. He still felt happy, even when he trod on the lump of dough and it was cold and froglike under his foot. He covered it up with Magic for Beginners. Then he had to turn his attention to the mirror. It would keep drifting out into the middle of the room. Cat had to tether it to the bookcase with his Sunday bootlace in the end.
He found Janet less happy than ever. Julia’s latest idea was a mosquito. It met Janet as she came into breakfast, and it kept with her, whining in and biting, all through lessons, until Cat swatted it with his arithmetic book. What with this, and nasty looks from both Julia and Mary, and then having to meet Mr. Nostrum, Janet became both peevish and miserable.
“It’s all right for you,” she said morbidly, as they tramped down the avenue on their way to the village that afternoon. “You’ve been brought up with all this magic and you’re used to it. But I’m not. And what scares me is that it’s forever. And it scares me even more that it isn’t forever. Suppose Gwendolen gets tired of her new world and decides to move on again? When that happens, off we shall be dragged, a whole string of us doubles, and I’ll be having to cope in her world, and you’ll have all your troubles over again with a new one.”
“Oh, I’m sure that won’t happen,” Cat said, rather startled at the possibility. “She’s bound to come back soon.”
“Oh, is she?” said Janet. They came through the gates, and again mothers snatched children out of their sight, and the village green emptied as they reached it. “I wish I was back at home!” Janet wailed, almost in tears at the way everyone ran away.
13
T HEY WERE USHERED into a private parlor in the White Hart. Mr. Henry Nostrum rolled pompously to meet them.
“My dear young friends!” He put his hands on Janet’s shoulders and kissed her. Janet started backwards, knocking her hat over one ear. Cat was a little shaken. He had forgotten Mr. Nostrum’s seedy, shabby look, and the weird effect of his wandering left eye. “Sit down, sit down!” said Mr. Nostrum heartily. “Have some ginger beer.”
They sat down. They sipped ginger beer, which neither of them liked. “What did you want me for, as well as Gwendolen?” Cat asked.
“Because,” said Mr. Nostrum, “to come straight to the point and not to beat about the bush, we find, as we rather feared we would, that we are quite unable to make use of those three signatures which you were kind enough to donate to me for services rendered in the tuition line. The Person Who Inhabits That Castle Yonder, whose name I disdain to say, signs his name under unbreakable protections. You may call it prudent of him. But I fear it necessitates our using Plan Two. Which was why, my dear Cat, we were so glad to arrange for you to live at the Castle.”
“What is Plan Two?” said Janet.
Mr. Nostrum’s odd eye slipped sideways across Janet’s face. He did not seem to realize she was not Gwendolen. Perhaps his wandering eye did not see very well. “Plan Two is just as I described it to you, my dear Gwendolen,” he said. “We have not changed it one whit.”
Janet had to try another way to find out what he was talking about. She was getting quite good at it. “I want you to describe it to Cat, though,” she said. “He doesn’t know about it, and he may need to because—because most unfortunately they’ve taken my witchcraft away.”
Mr. Nostrum wagged