Now in any other circumstances Rosemary would have been delighted at the very idea of seeing for herself the glories of Tussocks, which sounded from her mother’s description like a fairytale palace. It never occurred to Mrs Brown that there could be anything that her young daughter would rather do next day, so that she did not notice Rosemary’s lack of enthusiasm.
‘You had better wear your new gingham frock. It is lucky it is clean. Now as soon as we’ve cleared away I’ll go down and ask Mrs Walker if we may keep the cat. He is a handsome animal. I do hope she will say “yes”.’
‘I’ll wash up the tea things, Mummy, if you will go and ask her now,’ said Rosemary.
Mrs Brown went down the six flights of stairs and Rosemary folded up the cloth and got out the enamel bowl for washing up. It took rather a long time to clear away as she was only using one hand. The other was holding the broom so that she could talk to Carbonel.
‘If only I could have gone to Tussocks another day!’ she complained. Carbonel seemed unruffled.
‘As long as you don’t use the broom and go wearing it out for nothing, there is no need to get into such a fantod about it. If you are going to do magic, even elementary stuff, you’ll have to learn that time is merely a figure of speech.’
‘Is it?’ said Rosemary. Half her attention was concentrated on the wobbly pile of cups and saucers she was carrying with one hand, and at the same time she was wondering if she could tell Miss Pettigrue that time was merely a figure of speech next time she was late for school.
‘Besides,’ went on Carbonel, ‘I have important things to see to that would not interest you.’
‘How do you know they would not interest me?’ said Rosemary, a little ruffled. It really was difficult to clear away with one hand. ‘Oh, don’t go to sleep, Carbonel! Mummy will be back at any minute, and then you won’t be able to talk to me any more.’
The cat, who had curled himself up on the hearthrug, yawned elaborately.‘Well, you were not interested enough to ask me what I was doing last night and this morning,’ he said huffily. ‘Not so much as a “Hope you enjoyed yourself”.’ He turned in his paws and closed his eyes to mere golden slits. ‘Besides,’ he added sleepily, ‘you really can’t wash-upwith one hand, so you had better put the broom down,’ and he shut his eyes firmly. Not another word would he say.
Rosemary splashed the plates so vigorously that a good deal of the water slopped over on the floor, which made her cross.‘Really, Garbonel behaves sometimes as though he has bought me, not the other way round.’
But Rosemary was not a sulky child, and as soon as she heard her mother coming slowly across the landing she forgot everything except the fact that they sounded like the footsteps of someone who has not good news to tell.
‘It’s no use, Rosie,’ said Mrs Brown sadly, ‘Mrs Walker won’t hear of having a cat in the house!’
‘Mummy, what shall we do?’
‘Poppet, I said everything I could think of to make her change her mind. I told her how useful he would be for catching mice. But she only sniffed and said there had never been a mouse in the house in her day. I’m so sorry, darling. I’m afraid he will have to go.’
‘But I can’t send him away, not now I can’t!’ said Rosemary, scooping Carbonel up and hugging him fiercely. ‘Darling Carbonel, how could I?’ Two fat tears went rolling down her cheeks and fell with a splash on to the cat’s black fur. He struggled violently, and when Rosemary put him down he stalked off, shaking each paw in turn.
‘If only we had our own little house, you should have half-a-dozen cats,’ said Mrs Brown.
‘I don’t want half-a-dozen cats. I want Carbonel.’
‘Well, use my hankie and cheer up. Suppose we keep him until the morning and see if we can think of something. I never thought I should ever want to live in a house that was full of mice!’ said Mrs Brown. Rosemary was startled to hear Carbonel say ‘Don’t worry, you will!’
She looked up in alarm, but her mother was quietly putting the china away in the cupboard. Then she noticed that when she had flung herself down to pick up Carbonel she had put her hand accidentally on the handle of the broom which was sticking out from where she had pushed it under the sofa. Of course, her mother could not have heard. Rosemary looked sharply at Carbonel, but he was sitting on the hearthrug, absorbed in washing himself, with one of his hind legs sticking straight up in the air.
‘Will you come and talk to me in bed like you did last night?’ she whispered. Carbonel paused for a moment.
‘Not tonight. I shall be too busy.’
‘And please don’t be cross with me,’ she bent down to whisper, ‘it isn’t fair.’
But her mother had returned and Carbonel did not reply. Instead he lifted his head and with a warm, wet, rasping tongue gave her cheek a little lick. Comforted, Rosemary sat beside him on the hearthrug and stroked him very gently on the top of his satin-smooth head.
7
Carbonel and Mrs Walker
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When Rosemary woke next morning it was not to a feeling of pleasure at the prospect of the visit to Tussocks, but to one of uneasiness. At first she could not think what it was that was worrying her, but as her mind wandered sleepily back over the events of yesterday, it came to her quite suddenly. Mrs Walker would not let her keep Carbonel. And as suddenly she was wide awake and jumping out of bed.
The cat was not in her bedroom. Neither was he in the sitting room, where her mother was getting breakfast.
‘Never mind!’ said Mrs Brown when she saw her daughter’s anxious face. ‘Perhaps it is just as well he should take himself off, if Mrs Walker won’t let us keep him. I have been wondering how on earth we could find another home for him. But go and get dressed, darling. Had you forgotten youare coming with me today?’
Rosemary put on her newest gingham frock with none of the satisfaction that it usually gave her. She tidied her bedroom and made her bed with special care, and all the time she was making desperate plans for keeping Carbonel secretly in the tumbledown rabbit hutch in the yard.
‘But I don’t suppose he’d so much as look at a rabbit hutch,’ she thought, as she smoothed the bedspread with the exactness of thoughtful misery. ‘He would probably be offended at the very idea.’
During a rather silent breakfast, Rosemary was making patterns on her buttered toast with the point of her knife when there was an unmistakable‘Mew’ outside the door. Rosemary ran to open it, and sure enough, there was Carbonel! He trotted into the room with a smug expression on his face, without so much as a glance at Rosemary. Her mother, who was secretly feeling that it would have been much simpler if the cat had not come back, looked at her daughter’s worried face and reproached herself.
‘Let’s give him some milk, Poppet. But what to do about him I just don’t know! We simply must get ready to go now.’
Rosemary had such a tight feeling in her throat that she did not dare to say anything. She poured out a saucer of milk and was listening to the cat’s rhythmical lap-lap, lap-lap, when there was a knock on the door. Before her mother had time to say ‘Come in!’ Mrs Walker burst into the room.
‘Oh, Mrs Brown!’ she said. ‘It’s a judgement on me for saying you could not keep your cat. I never saw the like!’
‘Good gracious, what has happened? You look so upset! Now do sit down and let me give you a cup of tea. It has not been standing long.’
‘The kitchen!’ gasped Mrs Walker. ‘It’s full of mice, hundreds of them! You never saw anything like it! And me that’s always said that mice is vermin, and there’s only vermin where there’s dirt, and not a mouse in the house in all the fifteen years I’ve been here. Would you believe it? I opened the kitchen door to cook my old man a pair of kippers for ’is breakfast – he’s partial to kippers, Alfred is – and it fair turned me over. I can’t abide them!’