Charmed Life. Diana Wynne Jones

Yrs ever,

       Chrestomanci

      The second letter was shorter:

       Dear Chant,

       The same to you. Go to blazes.

       Chrestomanci

      The third letter was dated six years ago, and it was written by someone else. Chrestomanci had only signed it.

       Sir,

       You were warned six years ago that something like what you relate might come to pass, and you made it quite clear that you wished for no help from this quarter. We are not interested in your troubles. Nor is this a charitable institution.

       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 – specially 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 at 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 burnt, without being torn out of the book first. The third one along was so very burnt 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 parlour. 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 favourite 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. “I don’t get much for myself out of keeping you, do I? And I can’t trust your sister to remember me when she’s grown up and famous. Oh dear me no – I’ve no illusions about that!”

      Cat knew Mrs Sharp was probably right. He was a little sorry for her, for she had certainly been kind, and he knew by now that she was not a very good witch herself. The Certified Witch which the notice in Mrs Sharp’s parlour window claimed her to be was, in fact, the very lowest qualification. People only came to Mrs Sharp for charms when they could not afford the three Accredited Witches further down the street. Mrs Sharp eked out her earnings by acting as an agent for Mr Larkins at the junk shop. She got him Exotic Supplies – that is to say, the stranger ingredients needed for spells – from as far away as London. She was very proud of her contacts in London. “Oh yes,” she often said to Gwendolen, “I’ve got the contacts, I have. I know those that can get me a pound of dragon’s blood any time I ask, for all it’s illegal. While you have me, you’ll never be in need.”

      Perhaps, in spite of having no illusions about Gwendolen, Mrs Sharp was really hoping to become Gwendolen’s manager when Gwendolen grew up. Cat suspected she was, anyway. And he was sorry for Mrs Sharp. He was sure that Gwendolen would cast her off like an old coat when she became famous – like Mrs Sharp, Cat had no doubt that Gwendolen would be famous. So he said, “There’s me to look after you, though.” He did not fancy the idea, but he felt he ought to say it.

      Mrs Sharp was warmly grateful. As a reward, she arranged for Cat to have real music lessons. “Then that Mayor will have nothing to complain of,” she said. She believed in killing two birds with one stone.

      Cat started to learn the violin. He thought he was making good progress. He practised diligently. He never could understand why the new people living upstairs always banged on the floor when he started to play. Mrs Sharp, being tone-deaf herself, nodded and smiled when he played, and encouraged him greatly.

      He was practising away one evening, when Gwendolen stormed in and shrieked a spell in his face. Cat found, to his dismay, that he was holding a large striped cat by the tail. He had its head tucked under his chin, and he was sawing at its back with the violin bow. He dropped it hurriedly. Even so, it bit him under the chin and scratched him painfully.

      “What did you do that for?” he said. The cat stood in an arch, glaring at him.

      “Because that’s just what it sounded like!” said Gwendolen. “I couldn’t stand it a moment longer. Here, pussy, pussy!” The cat did not like Gwendolen either. It scratched the hand she held out to it. Gwendolen smacked it. It ran away, with Cat in hot pursuit, shouting, “Stop it! That’s my fiddle! Stop it!” But the cat escaped, and that was the end of the violin lessons.

      Mrs Sharp was very impressed with this display of talent from Gwendolen. She climbed on a chair in the yard and told Mr Nostrum about it over the wall. From there, the story spread to every witch and necromancer in the neighbourhood.

      That neighbourhood was full of witches. People in the same trade like to cluster together. If Cat came out of Mrs Sharp’s front door and turned right down Coven Street, he passed, besides the three Accredited Witches, two Necromancy Offered, a Soothsayer, a Diviner, and a Willing Warlock. If he turned left, he passed MR HENRY NOSTRUM A.R.C.M. Tuition in Necromancy, a Fortune-teller,