They walked quickly away across the green. The only other living soul in sight was Will Suggins, who came out of the back yard of the bread shop in order to stare meaningly after them.
“I think I’ve got to do what he wants,” Cat said.
“Don’t,” said Janet. “Though I must say I can’t see what else we can do.”
“About the only thing left is running away,” said Cat.
“Then let’s do that – at once,” said Janet.
They did not exactly run. They walked briskly out of the village on the road Cat thought pointed nearest to Wolvercote. When Janet objected that Wolvercote was the first place anyone at the Castle would think of looking, Cat explained about Mrs Sharp’s grand contacts in London. He knew Mrs Sharp would smuggle them away somewhere, and no questions asked. He made himself very homesick by talking of Mrs Sharp. He missed her dreadfully. He trudged along the country road, wishing it was Coven Street and wishing Janet was not walking beside him making objections.
“Well, you may be right,” Janet said, “and I don’t know where else we could go. How do we get to Wolvercote? Hitch-hike?” When Cat did not understand, she explained that it meant getting lifts by waving your thumb.
“That would save a lot of walking,” Cat agreed.
The road he had chosen shortly turned into a very country lane, rutted and grassy and lined with high hedges hung with red briony berries. There was no traffic of any kind.
Janet managed not to point this out. “One thing,” she said. “If we’re going to make a proper go of this, do promise me you won’t happen to mention You Know Who.” When Cat did not understand this either, she explained, “The man Mr Nostrum kept calling That Person and the Master of the Castle – you know!”
“Oh,” said Cat. “You mean Chrest—”
“Quiet!” bawled Janet. “I do mean him, and you mustn’t say it. He’s an enchanter and he comes when you call him, stupid! Just think of the way that Mr Nostrum was scared stiff to say his name.”
Cat thought about this. Gloomy and homesick as he was, he was not anxious to agree with anything Janet said. She was not really his sister, after all. Besides, Mr Nostrum had not been telling the truth. And Gwendolen had never said Chrestomanci was an enchanter. She would surely never have dared do all the magic she did if she thought he was. “I don’t believe you,” he said.
“All right. Don’t,” said Janet. “Just don’t say his name.”
“I don’t mind,” said Cat. “I hope I never see him again anyway.”
The lane grew wilder as they walked. It was a crisp warm afternoon. There were nuts in the hedges, and great bushes of blackberries. Before they had gone another half mile, Cat found his feelings had changed entirely. He was free. His troubles had been left behind. He and Janet picked the nuts, which were just ripe enough to eat, and laughed a good deal over cracking them. Janet took her hat off – as she told Cat repeatedly, she hated hats – and they filled the crown of it with blackberries for later on. They laughed when the juice oozed through the hat and dripped down Janet’s dress.
“I think running away is fun,” said Cat.
“Wait till we’re spending the night in a rat-infested barn,” said Janet. “Flitterings and squeakings. Are there ghouls and goblins in this wor—? Oh look! There’s a car coming! Thumb – no, wave. They probably don’t understand thumbing.”
They waved furiously at the big black car that was whispering and bouncing along the ruts towards them. To their delight, it sighed to a stop beside them. The nearest window rolled down. They got a very rude shock when Julia put her head out of it.
Julia was pale and agitated. “Oh please come back!” she said. “I know you ran away because of me, and I’m sorry! I swear I won’t do it any more!”
Roger put his head out of the back window. “I kept telling her you would,” he said. “And she didn’t believe me. Do come back. Please.”
The driver’s door had opened by then. Millie came hurrying round the long bonnet of the car. She looked much more homely than usual, because her skirts were looped up for driving and she was wearing stout shoes and an old hat. She was as agitated as Julia. When she reached Janet and Cat, she flung an arm round each of them and hugged them so hard and thankfully that Cat nearly fell over.
“You poor darlings! Another time you get unhappy, you must come and tell me at once! And what a thing, too! I was so afraid you’d got into real trouble, and then Julia told me it was her. I’m extremely vexed with her. A girl did that to me once and I know how miserable it made me. Now, please, please come back. I’ve got a surprise waiting for you at the Castle.”
There was nothing Cat and Janet could do but climb into the back of the car and be driven back to the Castle. They were miserable. Cat’s misery was increased by the fact that he began to feel sick from the moment Millie started to bump the car backwards down the lane to a gate where she could turn it. The smell of blackberry coming from Janet’s squashy hat made him feel worse.
Millie, Roger and Julia were very relieved to have found them. They chattered joyfully the whole way. Through his sickness, Cat got the impression that, although none of them said so, what they were particularly glad about was to have found Janet and Cat before Chrestomanci came to hear they were gone. This did not make either Cat or Janet feel any better.
In five minutes, the car had whispered up the avenue and stopped at the main door of the Castle. The butler opened it for them, just, Cat thought sadly, as Gwendolen would have wished. The butler, furthermore, ceremoniously took Janet’s leaking hat away from her. “I’ll see that these get to Cook,” he said.
Millie told Janet that her dress would just pass muster and hurried them to what was called the Little Drawing Room. “Which means of course that it’s a mere seventy feet square,” she said. “Go in. Tea will be there for you.”
They went in. In the middle of the big square room a wispy, skinny woman in beaded black clothes was sitting nervously on the edge of a gilded chair. She jumped round when the door opened.
Cat forgot he felt sick. “Mrs Sharp!” he shouted, and ran to hug her.
Mrs Sharp was overjoyed, in spite of her nervousness. “It’s my Cat, then! Here, stand back, let me look at you, and you too, Gwendolen, love. My word, you do wear fine clothes to go playing about in! You’re fatter, Cat. And Gwendolen, you’ve gone thin. I can understand that, dear, believe me! And would you just look at the tea they’ve brought for the three of us!”
It was a marvellous tea, even better than the tea on the lawn. Mrs Sharp, in her old greedy way, settled down to eat as much as she could, and to gossip hard. “Yes, we came up on the train yesterday, Mr Nostrum and me. After I got your postcard, Cat, I couldn’t rest till I’d had a look at you both, and seeing as how my contacts and other things have been paying nicely, I felt I owed it to myself. They treated me like royalty when I turned up here at the door, too. I can’t fault them. But I wish I cared for it in this Castle. Tell me, Gwendolen, love, does it get you like it gets me?”
“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