The Chrestomanci Series: Entire Collection Books 1-7

“How dare she!” said Gwendolen. “How dare she read my letters! I’m going straight to Chrestomanci about this!”

“You’ll regret it if you do,” said Euphemia, as Gwendolen pushed past her to the door.

Gwendolen whirled round on her. “Oh, shut up, you stupid frog-faced girl!” Cat thought that was a little unfair. Euphemia, though she did have rather goggling eyes, was actually quite pretty. “Come on, Cat!” Gwendolen shouted at him, and she ran away along the corridor with her letter. Cat panted behind her and, once again, did not catch up with her till they were beside the marble staircase. “Chrestomanci!” bawled Gwendolen, thin and small and unechoing.

Chrestomanci was coming up the marble staircase in a wide, flowing dressing-gown that was partly orange and partly bright pink. He looked like the Emperor of Peru. By the suave, vague look on his face, he had not noticed Gwendolen and Cat.

Gwendolen shouted down at him. “Here, you! Come here at once!” Chrestomanci’s face turned upwards and his eyebrows went up. “Someone’s been opening my letters,” said Gwendolen. “And I don’t care who it is, but I’m not having it! Do you hear?”

Cat gasped at the way she spoke. Chrestomanci seemed perplexed. “How are you not having it?” he said.

“I won’t put up with it!” Gwendolen shouted at him. “In future, my letters are going to come to me closed!”

“You mean you want me to steam them open and stick them down afterwards?” Chrestomanci asked doubtfully. “It’s more trouble, but I’ll do that if it makes you happier.”

Gwendolen stared at him. “You mean you did it? You read a letter addressed to me?”

Chrestomanci nodded blandly. “Naturally. If someone like Henry Nostrum writes letters to you, I have to make sure he’s not writing anything unsuitable. He’s a very seedy person.”

“He was my teacher!” Gwendolen said furiously. “You’ve no right to!”

“It’s a pity,” said Chrestomanci, “that you were taught by a hedge-wizard. You’ll have to unlearn such a lot. And it’s a pity too that I’ve no right to open your letters. I hope you don’t get many, or my conscience will give me no peace.”

“You intend to go on?” Gwendolen said. “Then watch out. I warn you!”

“That is very considerate of you,” said Chrestomanci. “I like to be warned.” He came up the rest of the marble stairs and went past Gwendolen and Cat. The pink and orange dressing-gown swirled, revealing a bright scarlet lining. Cat blinked.

Gwendolen stared vengefully as the dazzling dressing-gown flowed away along the gallery. “Oh no, don’t notice me, will you!” she said. “Make jokes. You wait! Cat, I’m so furious!”

“You were awfully rude,” said Cat.

“He deserved it,” said Gwendolen, and began to hurry back towards the playroom. “Opening poor Mr Nostrum’s letter! It isn’t that I mind him reading it. We arranged a code, so horrid Chrestomanci will never know what it’s really saying, but there is the signature. But it’s the insult. The indignity. I’m at their mercy in this Castle. I’m all on my own in distress and I can’t even stop them reading my letters. But I’ll show them. You wait!”

Cat knew better than to say anything. Gwendolen slammed into the playroom, flounced down at the table, and began at last to read her letter.

“I told you so,” said Euphemia, while Mary was working the lift.

Gwendolen shot her a look. “You wait, too,” she said, and went on reading. After a bit, she looked in the envelope again. “There’s one for you too,” she said to Cat, and tossed him a sheet of paper. “Mind you reply to it.”

Cat took it, wondering nervously why Mr Nostrum should write to him. But it was from Mrs Sharp. She wrote:

Me dear Cat,

Ow are you doin then me love? I fine meself lonesum an missin you both particular you the place seems so quiete. Thourght I was lookin forwards to a bit peace but missin yer voice an wishin you was comin in bringin appels. One thing happen an that was a gennelman come an give five poun for the ole cat that was yer fidel so I feel flush an had idear of packin you up a parsel of jinjerbredmen and mebbe bringin them to you one of these days but Mr Nostrum sez not to. Spect your in the lap of luckshury anyhows. Love to Gwendolen. Wish you was back here Cat and the money means nothin.

Your loving,

Ellen Sharp

Cat read this with a warm, smiling, tearful feeling. He found he was missing Mrs Sharp as much as she evidently missed him. He was so homesick he could not eat his bread, and the cocoa seemed to choke him. He did not hear one word in five that Mr Saunders said.

“Is something the matter with you, Eric?” Mr Saunders demanded.

As Cat dragged his mind back from Coven Street, the window blacked out. The room was suddenly pitch dark. Julia squeaked. Mr Saunders groped his way to the switch and turned the light on. As he did so, the window became transparent again, revealing Roger grinning, Julia startled, Gwendolen sitting demurely, and Mr Saunders with his hand on the switch looking irritably at her.

“I suppose the cause of this is outside the Castle grounds, is it?” he said.

“Outside the lodge gates,” Gwendolen said smugly. “I put it there this morning.” By this, Cat knew her campaign against Chrestomanci had been launched.

The window blacked out again.

“How often are we to expect this?” Mr Saunders said in the dark.

“Twice every half hour,” said Gwendolen.

“Thank you,” Mr Saunders said nastily, and he left the light on. “Now we can see, Gwendolen, write out one hundred times, I must keep the spirit of the law and not the letter and, Roger, take that grin off your face.”

All that day, all the windows in the Castle blacked out regularly twice every half hour. But if Gwendolen had hoped to make Chrestomanci angry, she did not succeed. Nothing happened, except that everyone kept the lights on all the time. It was rather a nuisance, but no one seemed to mind.

Before lunch, Cat went outside on to the lawn to see what the blackouts looked like from the other side. It was rather as if two black shutters were flicking regularly across the rows of windows. They started at the top right-hand corner, and flicked steadily across, along the next row from left to right and then from right to left along the next, and so on, until they reached the bottom. Then they started at the top again. Cat had watched about half a complete performance, when he found Roger beside him, watching critically with his pudgy hands in his pockets.

“Your sister must have a very tidy mind,” Roger said.

“I think all witches have,” said Cat. Then he was embarrassed. Of course he was talking to one – or at least to a warlock in the making.

“I don’t seem to have,” Roger remarked, not in the least worried. “Nor has Julia. And I don’t think Michael has, really. Would you like to come and play in our tree-house after lessons?”

Cat was very flattered. He was so pleased that he forgot how homesick he was. He spent a very happy evening down in the wood, helping to rebuild the roof of the tree-house. He came back to the Castle when the dressing-gong went, and found that the window-spell was fading. When the windows darkened, it only produced a sort of grey twilight indoors. By the following morning, it was gone, and Chrestomanci had not said a word.

Gwendolen returned to the attack the next morning. She caught the baker’s boy as he cycled through the lodge gates with the square front container of his bicycle piled high with loaves for the Castle. The baker’s boy arrived at the kitchen looking a little dazed and saying his head felt swimmy. As a consequence, the children had to have scones for breakfast. It seemed that when the bread was cut, the most interesting things happened.

“You’re giving us all a good laugh,” Mary said, as she brought the scones from the lift. “I’ll say that for your naughtiness, Gwendolen. Roberts thought he’d gone mad when he found he was cutting away at an old boot. So Cook cuts another, and next moment she and Nancy are trying to climb on the same chair because of all those white mice. But it was Mr Frazier’s face that made me laugh most, when he says ‘Let me’ and finds himself chipping at a stone. Then the—”

“Don’t encourage her. You know what she’s like,” said Euphemia.

“Be careful I don’t start on you,” Gwendolen said sourly.

Roger found out privately from Mary what had happened to the other loaves. One had become a white rabbit, one had been an ostrich egg – which had burst tremendously all over the bootboy – and another a vast white onion. After that, Gwendolen’s invention had run out and she had turned the rest into cheese. “Old bad cheese, though,” Roger said, giving honour where honour was due.

It was not known whether Chrestomanci also gave honour where it was due, because, once again, he said not a word to anyone.

The next day was Saturday. Gwendolen caught the farmer delivering the churn of milk the Castle used daily. The breakfast cocoa tasted horrible.

“I’m beginning to get annoyed,” Julia said tartly. “Daddy may take no notice, but he drinks tea with lemon.” She stared meaningly at Gwendolen. Gwendolen stared back, and there was that invisible feeling of clashing Cat had noticed when Gwendolen had wanted her mother’s earrings from Mrs Sharp. This time, however, Gwendolen did not have things all her own way. She lowered her eyes and looked peevish.

“I’m getting sick of getting up early, anyway,” she said crossly.

This, from Gwendolen, simply meant she would do something later in the day in future. But Julia thought she had beaten Gwendolen, and this was a mistake.