House of Many Ways (10 page)

Quite a long time later, the library door opened and Waif trotted in, looking very pleased with herself. She was followed by Jamal. “Message from our
Princess, Sire,” he said. “The lady has settled in, and Sim is taking tea to the front parlor.”

“Ah,” said the King. “Crumpets?”

“Muffins too,” Jamal said and went away.

The King banged his book shut and stood up. “I had better go and greet our guest,” he said.

“I’ll go on with the bills, then,” Charmain said. “I’ll make a pile of the ones I want to ask about.”

“No, no,” said the King. “You come too, my dear. Bring the little dog. Helps break the ice, you know. This lady is my daughter’s friend. Never met her myself.”

Charmain at once felt highly nervous again. She had found Princess Hilda thoroughly intimidating and much too royal for comfort, and any friend of hers was likely to be just as bad. But she could hardly refuse, when the King was expectantly holding the door open for her. Waif was already trotting after him. Charmain felt forced to get up and follow.

The front parlor was a large room full of faded sofas with slightly frayed arms and rather ragged fringes. There were more pale squares on the walls,
where pictures must once have hung. The biggest pale square was over the grand marble fireplace, where to Charmain’s relief a cheerful fire was burning. The parlor, like the library, was a cold room, and Charmain had gone cold with nerves again.

Princess Hilda was sitting bolt upright on a sofa beside the fireplace, where Sim had just pushed a large tea trolley. As soon as she saw Sim pushing a trolley, Charmain knew where she had seen Sim before. It was when she had got lost beside the Conference Room and had that glimpse of the old man pushing a trolley along a strange corridor. That’s odd! she thought. Sim was in the act of shakily placing a plate of buttered crumpets in the hearth. At the sight of those crumpets, Waif’s nose quivered and she made a dash toward them. Charmain was only just in time to catch her. As she stood up holding the wriggling Waif firmly in both arms, the Princess said, “Ah, my father, the King.” Everyone else in the parlor stood up. “Father,” said the Princess, “may I introduce my great friend, Mrs. Sophie Pendragon?”

The King strode limpingly forward, holding out his hand and making the large room look quite a little smaller. Charmain had not realized before quite how large he was. Quite as tall as those elves, she thought.

“Mrs. Pendragon,” he said. “Delighted to meet you. Any friend of our daughter’s is a friend of ours.”

Mrs. Pendragon surprised Charmain. She was quite young, younger than the Princess by a long way, and modishly dressed in a peacock blue that set off her red gold hair and blue-green eyes to perfection. She’s
lovely
! Charmain thought, rather enviously. Mrs. Pendragon dropped the King a little curtsy as they shook hands, and said, “I’m here to do my best, Sire. More I can’t say.”

“Quite right, quite right,” the King replied. “Please be seated again. Everyone. And let’s have some tea.”

Everyone sat down, and a polite, courteous hum of conversation began, while Sim doddered around giving out cups of tea. Charmain felt a complete outsider. Feeling sure that she should not be here,
she sat herself in the corner of the most distant sofa and tried to work out who the other people were. Waif meanwhile sat sedately on the sofa beside Charmain, looking demure. Her eyes keenly followed the gentleman who was handing round the crumpets. This gentleman was so quiet and colorless that Charmain forgot what he looked like as soon as she took her eyes off him and had to look at him again to remind herself. The other gentleman, the one whose mouth looked closed even when he was talking, she gathered was the King’s Chancellor. He seemed to have a lot of secretive things to say to Mrs. Pendragon, who kept nodding—and then blinking a bit, as if what the Chancellor said surprised her. The other lady, who was elderly, seemed to be Princess Hilda’s lady-in-waiting and very good at talking about the weather.

“And I shouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t rain again tonight,” she was saying, as the colorless gentleman arrived beside Charmain and offered her a crumpet. Waif’s nose swiveled yearningly to follow the plate.

“Oh, thanks,” Charmain said, pleased that he had not forgotten her.

“Take two,” suggested the colorless gentleman. “His Majesty will certainly eat any that are left over.” The King at that moment was eating two muffins, one squashed on top of the other, and watching the crumpets as eagerly as Waif was.

Charmain thanked the gentleman again and took two. They were the most buttery crumpets she had ever encountered. Waif’s nose swiveled to dab gently against Charmain’s hand. “All right, all right,” Charmain muttered, trying to break off a piece without dripping butter on the sofa. Butter ran down her fingers and threatened to trickle up her sleeves. She was trying to get rid of it on her handkerchief, when the lady-in-waiting finished saying all anyone could possibly say about the weather, and turned to Mrs. Pendragon.

“Princess Hilda tells me you have a charming little boy,” she said.

“Yes. Morgan,” Mrs. Pendragon said. She seemed to be having trouble with butter too and was
mopping her fingers with her handkerchief and looking flustered.

“How old will Morgan be now, Sophie?” Princess Hilda asked. “When I saw him he was just a baby.”

“Oh—nearly two,” Mrs. Pendragon replied, catching a big golden drip of butter before it fell on her skirt. “I left him with—”

The door of the parlor opened. Through it came a small, fat toddler in a grubby blue suit, with tears rolling down his face. “Mum-mum-mum!” he was wailing as he staggered into the room. But as soon as he saw Mrs. Pendragon, his face spread into a blinding smile. He stretched out both arms and rushed to her, where he buried his face in her skirt.
“Mum!”
he shouted.

Following him through the door came floating an agitated-looking blue creature shaped like a long teardrop with a face on the front of it. It seemed to be made of flames. It brought a gust of warmth with it and a gasp from everyone in the room. An even more agitated housemaid hurried in after it.

After the housemaid came a small boy, quite the most angelic child Charmain had ever seen. He had a mass of blond curls that clustered around his angelic pink and white face. His eyes were big and blue and bashful. His exquisite little chin rested on a frill of white, white lace, and the rest of his graceful little body was clothed in a pale blue velvet suit with big silver buttons. His pink rosebud mouth spread into a shy smile as he came in, showing a charming dimple in his delicate little cheek. Charmain could not
think
why Mrs. Pendragon was staring at him in such horror. He was surely a truly enchanting child. And what long, curly eyelashes!

“—with my husband and his fire demon,” Mrs. Pendragon finished. Her face had gone fiery red, and she glared at the little boy across the toddler’s head.

“Oh, ma’am, Sire!” the housemaid gasped. “I had to let them in. The little one was so upset!”

She said this into a room full of confusion. Everyone stood up and someone dropped a teacup. Sim plunged to rescue the cup and the King dived past him to pick up the plate of crumpets. Mrs. Pendragon stood up with Morgan in her arms, still looking daggers at the small boy, while the blue teardrop creature bobbed in front of her face. “It’s not my fault, Sophie!” it kept saying, in an agitated crackling voice. “I swear it’s not my fault! We
couldn’t stop Morgan crying for you.”

Princess Hilda rose quellingly to her feet. “You may go,” she said to the housemaid. “There is no need for anyone to be upset. Sophie, dear, I had no idea that you didn’t employ a nursemaid.”

“No, I don’t. And I was hoping for a break,” Mrs. Pendragon said. “You would think,” she added, glowering at the angelic little boy, “that a wizard and a fire demon could manage one small toddler between them.”

“Men!” said the Princess. “I have no opinion of men’s ability to manage anything. Of course Morgan and the other little boy must be our guests too, now that they’re here. What sort of accommodation does a fire demon require?” she asked the colorless gentleman.

He looked completely blank.

“I’d appreciate a good log fire,” the fire demon crackled. “I see you have a nice one in this room. That’s all I need. I’m Calcifer, by the way, ma’am.”

The Princess and the colorless gentleman both looked relieved. The Princess said, “Yes, of course.
I believe we met briefly in Ingary, two years ago.”

“And who is this other little fellow?” the King asked genially.

“Thophie’th my auntie,” the small boy answered in a sweet lisping voice, raising his angelic face and big blue eyes to the King’s.

Mrs. Pendragon looked outraged.

“Pleased to meet you,” the King said. “And what’s your name, my little man?”

“Twinkle,” the little boy whispered, coyly ducking his curly blond head.

“Have a crumpet, Twinkle,” the King said heartily, holding the plate out.

“
Fank
you,” Twinkle said devoutly, taking a crumpet.

At this, Morgan held out a fat, imperious hand and boomed, “Me, me,
me
!” until the King gave him a crumpet too. Mrs. Pendragon sat Morgan on a sofa to eat it. Sim looked around and resourcefully fetched a cloth from the trolley. It became soaked in butter almost at once. Morgan beamed up at Sim, the Princess, the lady-in-waiting, and the Chancellor,
with his face all shiny. “Dumpet,” he said. “
Dood
dumpet.”

While this was going on, Charmain became aware that Mrs. Pendragon had somehow trapped little Twinkle behind the sofa she was sitting on. She could not help but overhear Mrs. Pendragon demanding, “What
do
you think you’re
doing
, Howl?” She sounded so fierce that Waif jumped into Charmain’s lap and cowered there.

“They forgot to invite me,” Twinkle’s sweet little voice replied. “That’th thilly. You can’t thort out thith meth on your own, Thophie. You need me.”

“No I do
not
!” Sophie retorted. “And do you
have
to lisp like that?”

“Yeth,” said Twinkle.

“Doh!” said Sophie. “It’s not funny, Howl. And you’ve dragged Morgan here—”

“I tell you,” Twinkle interrupted her, “Morgan did not thtop crying from the moment you left. Athk Calthifer if you don’t believe me!”

“Calcifer’s as bad as you are!” Sophie said passionately. “I don’t believe either of you so much as
tried
to stop him. Did you? You were just looking for an excuse to launch this—this
masquerade
on poor Princess Hilda!”

“She needth uth, Thophie,” Twinkle said earnestly.

Charmain was quite fascinated by this conversation, but, unfortunately, Morgan looked round for his mother just then and spotted Waif trembling on Charmain’s knee. He gave a loud cry of
“Doggie!,”
slid off his sofa, trampling the cloth as he went, and rushed at Waif with both buttery hands out. Waif jumped desperately onto the back of the sofa, where she stood and yapped. And yapped, like a shrill version of someone with a hacking cough. Charmain was forced to pick Waif up and back away, out of Morgan’s reach, so that all she heard next of the strange conversation behind the sofa was Mrs. Pendragon saying something about sending Twinkle (or was his name Howl?) to bed without supper and Twinkle daring her to “jutht
try
it.”

As Waif quieted down, Twinkle said wistfully, “Don’t you fink I’m pwetty at all?”

There was a strange hollow thump then, as if Mrs. Pendragon had so far forgotten good behavior as to stamp her foot. “Yes,” Charmain heard her say. “
Disgustingly
pretty!”

“Well,” said Princess Hilda, over near the fire, while Charmain was still backing away from Morgan, “things are certainly
lively
with children around. Sim, give Morgan a muffin,
quickly
.”

Morgan at once reversed direction and ran toward Sim and the muffins. Charmain heard her own hair frizzle. She looked round and found the fire demon hovering beside her shoulder, looking at her with flaming orange eyes.

“Who are you?” the demon said.

Charmain’s heart thumped a little, although Waif seemed perfectly calm. If I hadn’t just met a lubbock, Charmain thought, I’d be quite frightened of this Calcifer. “I…er…I’m only the temporary help in the library,” she said.

“Then we’ll need to talk to you later,” Calcifer crackled. “You reek of magic, did you know? You and your dog.”

“She’s not my dog. She belongs to a wizard,” Charmain said.

“This Wizard Norland who seems to have messed things up?” Calcifer asked.

“I don’t think Great-Uncle William messed things up,” Charmain said. “He’s a
dear
!”

“He seems to have looked in all the wrong places,” Calcifer said. “You don’t need to be nasty to make a mess. Look at Morgan.” And he whisked away. He had this way, Charmain thought, of vanishing in one place and turning up in another, like a dragonfly flicking about over a pond.

The King came across to Charmain, jovially wiping his hands on a large, crisp napkin. “Better get back to work, my dear. We have to tidy up for the night.”

“Yes, of course, Sire,” Charmain said and followed him toward the door.

Before they got there, the angelic Twinkle somehow escaped from the angry Mrs. Pendragon and pulled at the sleeve of the lady-in-waiting. “Pleathe,” he asked charmingly, “do you have any toyth?”

The lady looked nonplussed. “I don’t play with toys, dear,” she said.

Morgan caught the word from her.
“Doy!”
he shouted, waving both arms, with a buttery muffin clutched in one fist. “Doy, doy, doy!”

A jack-in-the-box landed in front of Morgan, bursting its lid open, so that the jack popped out with a
boinng.
A large dollhouse crashed down beside it, followed by a shower of elderly teddy bears. An instant later, a shabby rocking horse established itself next to the tea trolley. Morgan shouted with delight.

“I think we’ll leave my daughter to cope with her guests,” the King said, ushering Charmain and Waif out of the parlor. He shut the door upon more and more toys appearing and the child Twinkle looking highly demure, while everyone else ran about in confusion. “Wizards are often very vigorous guests,” the King remarked on the way back to the library, “although I had no idea they started so young. A bit trying for their mothers, I imagine.”

Half an hour later, Charmain was on her way back to Great-Uncle William’s house with Waif pattering behind her looking as demure as the child Twinkle.

“Ooof!” Charmain said to her. “You know, Waif, I’ve never lived so much life in three days,
ever
!” She felt a bit wistful all the same. It made sense for the King to give her the bills and love letters, but she did wish they could have taken turns with the books. She would have loved to spend some of the day at least going through a thoroughly elderly and musty leather-bound volume. It was what she had been hoping for. But never mind. As soon as she got back to Great-Uncle William’s house, she could bury herself in
The Twelve-Branched Wand,
or perhaps
Memoirs of an Exorcist
would be better, since it seemed to be the kind of book you were happier to read by daylight. Or try a different book altogether, maybe?

She was looking forward so much to a good read that she hardly noticed the walk, except to pick Waif up again when Waif began panting and toiling. With Waif in her arms, she kicked Great-Uncle
William’s gate open and found herself confronting Rollo halfway up the path, scowling all over his small blue face.

“What is it
now
?” Charmain said to him, and seriously wondered whether to pick Rollo up too and throw him into the hydrangeas. Rollo was small enough to hurl beautifully, even when she had one arm wrapped round Waif.

“Them flowerheads you got all over that outside table,” Rollo said. “You expect me to stick them back on, or something?”

“No, of course not,” Charmain said. “They’re drying in the sun. Then I’ll have them in the house.”

“Huh!” said Rollo. “Prettifying in there, are you? How do you think the wizard’ll like that?”

“None of your business,” Charmain said haughtily, and strode forward so that Rollo was forced to hop out of her way. He shouted something after her as she was opening the front door, but she did not bother to listen. She knew it was rude. She slammed the door shut on his yells.

Indoors, the smell of the living room was more than musty. It was like a stagnant pond. Charmain put Waif on the floor and sniffed suspiciously. So did Waif. Long brown fingers of something were oozing under the door to the kitchen. Waif tiptoed up to them warily. Charmain, equally warily, put out her toe and prodded the nearest brown trickle. It squished like a marsh.

“Oh, what has Peter done
now
?” Charmain exclaimed. She flung the door open.

Two inches of water rippled all over the kitchen floor. Charmain could see it seeping darkly up the six bags of laundry beside the sink.

“
Doh!”
she cried out, slammed the door shut, opened it again, and turned left.

The corridor there was awash. Sunlight from the end window flared on the water in a way that suggested a strong current coming from the bathroom. Angrily, Charmain splashed her way there. All I wanted to do was sit down and read a book! she thought, and I come home to a flood!

As she reached the bathroom, with Waif paddling
unhappily after her, its door opened and Peter shot out of it, damp down his front and looking thoroughly harassed. He had no shoes on and his trousers were rolled up to his knees.

“Oh good, you’re back,” he said, before Charmain could speak. “There’s this hole in one of the pipes in here. I’ve tried six different spells to stop it, but all they do is make it move about. I was just going to turn the water off at that woolly tank through there—or try to anyway—but perhaps you could do something instead.”

“Woolly tank?” Charmain said. “Oh, you mean that thing covered in blue fur. What makes you think that will do any good? Everywhere’s
flooded
!”

“It’s the only thing I haven’t tried,” Peter snarled at her. “The water
has
to come from there somehow. You can hear it trickling. I thought I might find a stopcock—”

“Oh, you’re
useless
!” Charmain snarled back. “Let me have a look.” She pushed Peter aside and flounced into the bathroom, raising a sheet of water as she went.

There was indeed a hole. One of the pipes between the washbasin and the bath had a lengthwise slit in it, and water was spraying out of it in a merry fountain. Here and there along the pipe were gray magical-looking blobs which must have been Peter’s six useless spells. And this is all
his
fault! she snarled to herself.
He
was the one who made the pipes red hot. Oh,
honestly!

She rushed at the spraying slit and angrily planted both hands on it. “Stop this!” she commanded. Water sprayed out round her hands and into her face. “Stop it at
once
!”

All that happened was that the slit moved sideways from under her fingers for about six inches and sprayed water over her pigtail and her right shoulder. Charmain scooped her hands along to cover it again. “Stop that!
Stop
it!”

The slit moved off sideways again.

“So that’s how you want it, is it?” Charmain said to it, and scooped some more. The slit moved off. She followed it with her hands. In a moment or so she had it cornered above the bath and the water
spraying harmlessly into the bath and running away down the plughole. She kept it there, by leaning on the pipe with one hand, while she thought what next to do. I wonder Peter didn’t think of this, she thought in a sort of mutter, instead of running about casting useless spells. “Great-Uncle William,” she called out, “how do I stop the bathroom pipe leaking?”

There was no answer. This was obviously not something Great-Uncle William thought Charmain would need to know.

“I don’t think he knows much about plumbing,” Peter said from the doorway. “There’s nothing useful in the suitcase either. I had it all out to see.”

“Oh,
did
you?” Charmain said nastily.

“Yes, some of the stuff in there is really
interesting
,” Peter said. “I’ll show you if you—”

“Be
quiet
and let me
think
!” Charmain snapped at him.

Peter seemed to realize that Charmain might not be in a very good mood. He stopped talking and waited while Charmain stood in the bath and leaned
on the pipe, thinking. You had to come at this leak two ways, so that it couldn’t slide off again. First you fixed it in one place and then you covered it up. But how? Quick, before my feet are quite soaked. “Peter,” she said, “go and get me some dishcloths. At least
three.”

“Why?” said Peter. “You don’t think—”