The Chrestomanci series: 3 Book Collection. Diana Wynne Jones

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      “I feel like a thief with the swag,” Janet whispered. “Someone’s going to shine a searchlight any second, and then the police will close in. Are there police here?”

      “Yes,” said Cat. “Do shut up.”

      But, as usual, there was no one about near the private door. They crept down the shiny passage and peeped outside. The space by the rhododendrons was empty. They crept out towards them. Trees that would hide Mr Baslam would hide them and their loot.

      They were three steps outside the door when a massed choir burst into song. Janet and Cat nearly jumped out of their skins. “We belong to Chrestomanci Castle! We belong to Chrestomanci Castle!” thundered forty voices. Some were deep, some were shrill, but all were very loud. They made a shattering noise. It took them a second or so to realise that the voices were coming from their bundles.

      “Creeping antimacassars!” said Janet.

      They turned round and ran for the door again, with the forty voices bawling in their ears.

      Miss Bessemer opened the door. She stood tall and narrow and purple, waiting for them to come through it. There was nothing Janet and Cat could do but scuttle guiltily past her into the passage, where they put their suddenly silent bundles down on the floor and steeled themselves for trouble.

      “What an awful noise, my loves!” said Miss Bessemer. “I haven’t heard the like since a silly warlock tried to burgle us. What were you doing?”

      Janet did not know who the stately purple lady was. She was too scared to speak. Cat had to say something. “We were wanting to play houses in the tree-house,” he said. “We needed some things for it.” He was surprised how likely he made it sound.

      “You should have told me, sillies!” said Miss Bessemer. “I could have given you some things that don’t mind being taken outside. Run and put those back, and I’ll look you out some nice furnishings for tomorrow.”

      They crept dismally back to Janet’s room. “I just can’t get used to the way everything’s magic here,” Janet moaned. “It’s getting me down. Who was that long purple lady? I’m offering even money she’s a sorceress.”

      “Miss Bessemer. The housekeeper,” said Cat.

      “Any hope that she’ll give us splendid cast-offs that will fetch twenty quid in the open market?” Janet asked. They both knew that was unlikely. They were no nearer thinking of another way to earn twenty pounds when the dressing-gong went.

      Cat had warned Janet what dinner was like. She had promised not to jump when footmen passed things over her shoulder, and sworn not to try and talk about statues with Mr Saunders. She assured Cat she would not mind hearing Bernard talk of stocks and shares. So Cat thought that for once he could be easy. He helped Janet dress and even had a shower himself, and when they went into the drawing room he thought that they both did him credit.

      But Mr Saunders proved at last to have worn out his craze for statues. Instead, everyone began to talk about identical twins, and then about exact doubles who were no relation. Even Bernard forgot to talk about shares in his interest in this new subject.

      “The really difficult point,” he boomed, leaning forward with his eyebrows working up and down his forehead, “is how such people fit in with a series of other worlds.”

      And, to Cat’s dismay, the talk turned to other worlds. He might have been interested at any other time. Now he dared not look at Janet, and could only wish that everyone would stop. But they talked eagerly, all of them, particularly Bernard and Mr Saunders. Cat learnt that a lot was known about other worlds. Numbers had been visited. Those which were best known had been divided into sets, called series, according to the events in History which were the same in them. It was very uncommon for people not to have at least one exact double in a world of the same series – usually people had a whole string of doubles, all along the set.

      “But what about doubles outside a series?” Mr Saunders said. “I have at least one double in Series III, and I suspect the existence of another in—”

      Janet sat up sharply, gasping. “Cat, help! It’s like sitting on pins!”

      Cat looked at Julia. He saw the little smile on her face, and the tail-end of her handkerchief above the table. “Change places,” he whispered, feeling rather tired. He stood up. Everyone stared.

      “All of which makes me feel that a satisfactory classification has not yet been found,” Mr Saunders said, as he turned Cat’s way.

      “Do you think,” said Cat, “that I could change places with J—Gwendolen, please? She can’t quite hear what Mr Saunders is saying from there.”

      “Yes, and it’s rivetingly interesting,” Janet gasped, shooting from her chair.

      “If you find it essential,” Chrestomanci said, a little annoyed.

      Cat sat in Janet’s chair. He could feel nothing wrong with it. Julia put her head down and gave him a long, unpleasant look, and her elbows worked as she crossly untied her handkerchief. Cat saw that she was going to hate him, too, now. He sighed. It was one thing after another.

      Nevertheless, when Cat fell asleep that night, he was not feeling hopeless. He could not believe things could get any worse – so they had to get better. Perhaps Miss Bessemer would give them something very valuable, and they could sell it. Or, better still, perhaps Gwendolen would be back when he woke up, and already solving all his problems.

      But when he went to Gwendolen’s room in the morning, it was still Janet, struggling to tie her garters and saying over her shoulder, “These things are probably very bad for people. Do you wear them, too? Or are they a female torture? And one useful thing magic could do would be to hold one’s stockings up. It makes you think that witches can’t be very practical.”

      She did talk a lot, Cat thought. But it was better than having no one in Gwendolen’s place.

      At breakfast, neither Mary nor Euphemia were at all friendly, and, as soon as they left the room, one of the curtains wrapped itself round Janet’s neck and tried to strangle her. Cat took it away. It fought him like a live thing, because Julia was holding both ends of her handkerchief and pulling hard on the knot.

      “Oh, do stop it, Julia!” he begged her.

      “Yes, do,” Roger agreed. “It’s silly and it’s boring. I need to enjoy my food in peace.”

      “I’m quite willing to be friends,” Janet offered.

      “That makes one of us,” said Julia. “No.”

      “Then be enemies!” Janet snapped, almost in Gwendolen’s manner. “I thought at first that you might be nice, but I can see now that you’re just a tedious, pigheaded, cold-hearted, horny-handed, cross-eyed hag!”

      That, of course, was calculated to make Julia adore her.

      Luckily, Mr Saunders appeared earlier than usual. There had only been time for Janet’s marmalade to turn to orange worms, and change back again when Cat gave her his instead, and for Janet’s coffee to become rich brown gravy, and turn to coffee again when СКАЧАТЬ