Charmed Life - Diana Wynne Jones [60]
“How does it get you?” Janet asked cautiously.
“I’m nerves all over,” said Mrs. Sharp. “I feel weak and jumpy as a kitten—and that reminds me, Cat, but I’ll tell you later. It’s so quiet here. I kept trying to think what it was before you came—and you were a long time, my loves—and at last it came to me. It’s an enchantment, that’s what it is, a terrible strong one too, against us witches. I said, ‘This Castle does not love witches, that’s what it is!’ and I felt for you, Gwendolen. Make him send you to school away somewhere. You’d be happier.”
She chattered on. She was delighted to see them both, and she kept giving Cat particularly proud and affectionate looks. Cat thought she had convinced herself she had brought him up from a baby. After all, she had known him since he was born.
“Tell us about Coven Street,” he said yearningly.
“I was coming to that,” said Mrs. Sharp. “You remember Miss Larkins? Bad-tempered girl with red hair who used to tell fortunes? I never thought much of her myself. But someone did. She’s been set up by a grateful client in a Salon in Bond Street. Coven Street’s not good enough for her anymore. The luck some people have! But I’ve had a stroke of luck myself too. I told you in my letter—didn’t I, Cat?—about being given five pounds for that old cat you turned our Cat’s fiddle into, Gwendolen. Well, he was ever such a funny little man who bought him. While we were waiting to catch the old cat—you know how he never would come if you wanted him—this little man kept at me, telling me all about stocks and shares and capital investment and such like. Things I never could understand. He told me what I ought to be doing with that five pound he was giving me, and making my head go around with it. Well, I didn’t think too much of it, but I thought I’d have a go. And I did what he said, as far as I could remember. And do you know, that five pounds has brought in one hundred! One hundred pounds, he got me!”
“He must have been a financial wizard,” Janet said.
She meant it as a joke to cheer herself up. She needed cheering up for several reasons. But Mrs. Sharp took her literally. “He was, my dear! You’re always so clever. I know he was, because I told Mr. Nostrum, and Mr. Nostrum did exactly what I did with five pounds of his own—or it may have been more—and he lost every penny of it. And another thing—”
Cat watched Mrs. Sharp as she chattered on. He was puzzled and sad. He was still just as fond of Mrs. Sharp. But he knew it would have been no use whatsoever running away to her. She was a weak, dishonest person. She would not have helped them. She would have sent them back to the Castle and tried to get money out of Chrestomanci for doing it. And the London contacts she was boasting of at that moment were just boasts. Cat wondered how much he had changed inside—and why he had—enough to know all this. But he did know, just as surely as if Mrs. Sharp had turned around in her gilded chair and assured him of it herself, and it upset him.
As Mrs. Sharp came to the end of the food, she seemed to become very nervous. Perhaps the Castle was getting her down. At length she got up and took a nervous trot to the distant window, absentmindedly taking her teacup with her.
“Come and explain this view,” she called. “It’s so grand I can’t understand it.” Cat and Janet obligingly went over to her. Whereupon Mrs. Sharp became astounded to find she had an empty teacup in her hand. “Oh, look at this,” she said, shaking with nervousness. “I’ll be carrying it away with me if I’m not careful.”
“You’d better not,” said Cat. “It’s bound to be charmed. Everything you take outside shouts where it came from.”
“Is that so?” All of a flutter, Mrs. Sharp passed Janet her cup and followed it up, very guiltily, with two silver spoons and the sugar tongs out of her handbag. “There, dear. Would you mind taking those back to the table?” Janet set off across the yards of carpet and, as soon as she was out of hearing, Mrs. Sharp bent and whispered, “Have you talked