Carbonel and Calidor

9. Dumpsie

ROSEMARY crossed to where, in the shadow of the hedge opposite, a small, draggled-looking tabby cat, not much bigger than a kitten, was stumbling on three paws over the rough grass. The fourth paw it seemed unable to put to the ground. It shrank back when she came near and, with flattened ears, spat half-heartedly, as she bent over it.

‘It’s all right, Puss,’ said Rosemary gently. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ She knelt on the grass, and with two careful fingers stroked the silky top of its head. ‘It looks as if its paw is cut quite badly,’ she went on to John, who had joined her. ‘I wonder how it happened? Let’s get out the Golden Gew-Gaw and find out.’ Under her stroking fingers Rosemary felt the little animal’s tense body begin to relax.

‘Where do you come from, Puss?’ she asked, when she and John had both crooked little fingers through the ring.

‘We’re Hearing Humans,’ added John, ‘so you can tell us.’

‘I don’t care a whisker who you be!’ said the cat, looking up at them suspiciously. ‘I’m not telling nothing. Neither where nor why, because there’s some in high places trusts me not to. Trouble brewing, there is. Bad trouble, where I come from. Mind you, I’m not telling what, neither.’

‘Can’t you even tell us how you hurt your paw?’

‘Ah, that’s different,’ said the cat. ‘Boys that was. Threw a stone at me. Them Fallowhithe lads ...’ She broke off, and went on sulkily: ‘There, I’ve gone and told you “where”, and I didn’t mean to.’

‘Do you mean you’ve come all the way from Fallowhithe?’ said Rosemary. ‘That’s miles!’

‘Since the edge of last night I’ve been padding it. But with only three paws it’s hard going.’

‘Won’t you tell us who you are?’ asked John.

‘Me?’ replied the cat. ‘I’m a nobody, I am. That’s why I sez to myself, no one won’t notice the likes of me searching here and seeking there.’

‘What are you seeking and searching for?’ asked John.

‘That ‘ld be telling!’ said the little cat. ‘But I’ll go so far as to say it’s for who, not what.’ A small pink tongue flicked out for a moment. The cat gave a little moan. ‘What wouldn’t I give for so much as a dribble of milk!’

‘Look here,’ said Rosemary, turning to John. ‘Couldn’t we carry the poor thing indoors and bathe its paw?’

‘Just what I was thinking,’ he said. ‘And give it some milk. Come on!’

‘Here, wait a minute! Suppose I don’t want to come?’ said the little animal, shrinking back even further into the hedge. ‘Where might “indoors” be, I should like to know?’

‘Why here. Uncle Zack’s house, at Highdown.’

‘Highdown?’ said the little cat, with a sudden lift of her drooping head. ‘Then I’m in luck. For that’s where the seeking and searching really has to begin!’

‘Come on then,’ said John. ‘We’d better ask if we can keep her.’

Uncle Zack was busy in his office. He looked up absently for a moment from the papers that littered his desk, and waved distractedly at the one on which he seemed to be working. It was covered with figures, and almost as many doodles.

‘A cat?’ he said absently. ‘Yes, of course, of course. Might help with those rats. What is 425 divided by nineteen?’ Luckily he did not seem to expect an answer.

Mrs Bodkin, on the other hand, frowned rather fiercely.

‘A cat? Well, I don’t know! As if I hadn’t enough to do, what with you two, and the things to make for the Sale and ...’ She broke off: ‘My goodness me, that’s a nasty cut on its paw! Poor little thing! Well, what are you waiting for? Go and get the First Aid Box. It’s in the cupboard in the bathroom, and there’s some milk in a jug on the kitchen table.’

So that was all right.

Presently, bathed, bandaged and fed, with an empty milk saucer alongside, the little cat sat and washed itself by the sitting-room fire. Only then did John and Rosemary realize what a pretty creature it was, with shining tabby coat, snow-white stockings and wide white ruff.

‘It’s awfully difficult to talk to someone when you don’t know what to call them,’ said John.

‘You are a “she” anyway, aren’t you?’ asked Rosemary.

The cat looked up from licking a hind leg. ‘Ah, a she I be, right enough. And you’ve been that kind I don’t mind telling you my mammy calls me Wellingtonia.’

‘What a grand name!’ said Rosemary.

‘Not really. Born and bred in a Wellington boot I was, that’s why. Wellingtonia for best, but Dumpsie for ordinary, because the boot was on Fallowhithe Rubbish Dump. There’s some as turns up their grand noses at anywhere so low, but snug and warm it was, and handy for haddock heads, and the licking of sardine tins and such.’

‘Dumpsie,’ said Rosemary thoughtfully. ‘Where have I heard that name ...?’ But John interrupted.

‘Of course, I remember! This seeking and searching,’ he said to Dumpsie. ‘It wouldn’t be for a cat called Calidor?’

She lifted a startled face. ‘Ssh!’ she said, looking nervously over her shoulder. ‘Don’t you go for to call him by that name! Crumpet he’s called in these parts. He told me all about it, but he didn’t say a word to anyone else. How in the world do the likes of you know who he really is, when he was so set on it being a secret?’

‘We know because we talked to him only yesterday,’ said John.

‘Now I remember,’ said Rosemary. ‘He told us that his dear little Dumpsie was the only cat he could ever marry!’

‘And there can’t be two cats with such a sil ... I mean, unusual name,’ went on John. (Rosemary’s nudge had been nearly too late, but Dumpsie did not seem to have noticed.)

‘Did he really say that?’ she said softly, and she lifted her chin and purred such a purr as John and Rosemary had never heard before; but not for long. She stopped abruptly, and rose unsteadily on her three sound paws.

‘And while I’ve been guzzling and gossiping here the bad trouble may be getting worse. I must go. Where can I find him as calls himself Crumpet?’

Rosemary looked at John. ‘Couldn’t we take her to the station on our way to Tucket Towers? We must get on and do it. That’s if you’d like that, Dumpsie?’

‘That I would! You can carry me there just as soon as your great clumping feet can take you. Must be awkward, only having two paws apiece to walk on.’

They met Mrs Bodkin as they were about to set out.

‘Going for a walk?’ she said. ‘You’d better wear your macs and gum-boots. It poured in the night, and it looks like rain again.’

They hurried off, taking it in turns to carry Dumpsie, and rather uncomfortably linked together by the magic ring, so that they could listen to the little cat’s stories of life on the Dump, where there never seemed to be a dull moment. They were halfway down Sheepshank Lane when Rosemary said: ‘Half a minute. I’ve got a stone in my shoe.’

She slipped her finger from the Golden Gew-Gaw, and sat down on the grass by the side of the road, while she wrestled with the knot in her shoe-lace. John sat down beside her, and Dumpsie wandered towards the hedge.

‘What are you looking like that for?’ said Rosemary when, the stone removed, she had tied up her shoe-lace again. Both John and Dumpsie were leaning towards the hedge with a listening expression on their faces. ‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘Ssh! Of course you can’t,’ whispered John. ‘Cats! Talking! The other side of the hedge.’ And at the same time he held out his hand so that Rosemary could slip her finger through the golden band of the magic ring. And at once she heard a high-and-mighty cat voice say in surprise:

‘Calidor! Here alone in Broomhurst country?’ And although it was a purring voice, it had a cold and cruel undertone. ‘My faithful Mattins!’ John and Rosemary exchanged glances. ‘This Calidor, who refuses to marry my daughter, has the impertinence to wander into my country as though it belongs to him! What do you think of that, my darling child?’

‘Grisana! It must be!’ whispered John, and Dumpsie nodded.

‘What do I think, Mama?’ drawled a second voice. ‘Calidor is nothing to me. I was resigned to becoming his wife only because our two united countries would have made a single kingdom worth my ruling later on.’

‘Dear child, always so ambitious!’ purred Grisana.

‘Of course, I should see to it that Fallowhithe cats would be taught their place. Best fish bits for Broomhurst beasts, and so on.’

‘Always thinking of other people!’ said Grisana, but the purr left her voice when she went on: ‘All the same, think of the insult to the Royal house of Castrum, when the marriage was planned so long ago. It must be avenged!’

‘Of course, I never bear a grudge,’ replied the second voice, ‘but perhaps he should be ... well ... punished!’ And the lingering hiss with which it said ‘punished’ made Dumpsie’s fur bristle.

‘That must be Melissa. The one Crumpet called Slypaws,’ whispered Rosemary.

‘Never fear, my child,’ went on Grisana. ‘For his own good, of course, he shall be well and truly ... scrodged!’ Here her voice sank to a yowling spit.

‘He has run away from Fallowhithe to become a common witch’s cat, you say, Mattins? Wretched animal! But not so wretched as he will be when we have finished with him! But I am glad to hear that you, at least, have seen the error of your ways, and have decided to give up such an unworthy trade.’

‘My witch doesn’t want me any more,’ said Mattins sulkily. ‘Says she’s found another cat she thinks will look better on her broomstick than I should. Not that I’ve seen him, mind you. She says she’ll find me a few odd jobs to do instead. Me, doing odd jobs instead of magic! Grow ... ouch!’ he spat.

‘How very humbling for you,’ said Grisana sweetly. ‘So unreliable, witches! But do not leave your witch woman, for my sake. You may overhear something quite useful. Pretend to oblige her. Come, Melissa! We must go. And remember, my good Mattins, I should like to hear more about this cat who is to take your place. You shall be rewarded for what you have told us today.’ The voices faded as the three cats moved away.

‘That beastly sneaking Mattins!’ burst out John. ‘He must have been listening to every word when Calidor was talking to us yesterday at the station. No wonder he ran off when we called to him.’

‘But I thought he was Calidor’s friend?’ said Rosemary.

‘Well, he doesn’t seem to be now,’ said John shortly. ‘We must warn him!’

‘And about Grisana too,’ said Rosemary. ‘Come on. We must hurry. Hi! Dumpsie, wait for us!’

The little cat was already limping ahead as fast as her three paws could carry her.

‘Oh, make haste! Make haste! Calidor is in danger!’

John scooped her up from the road, and together they all three hurried towards the station.

‘I wish to goodness Carbonel was here,’ said Rosemary. ‘I wonder why he doesn’t come? I’m sure he’d know what to do about Calidor and Grisana.’

‘And the Golden Gew-Gaw. I don’t trust that ring,’ said John. ‘We still don’t know what has happened to the Scrabbles.’

‘I wonder if the instructions really were in the purple cracker, and we just didn’t find them,’ went on Rosemary.

‘It’s possible ...’ John, who was carrying Dumpsie, broke off. ‘Ow! That hurt. You scratched me!’

‘I know. I meant to,’ said Dumpsie coolly. ‘Because you won’t listen. Just go on yammer, yammer, you do. I’ve been trying to tell you. Carbonel has disappeared! Gone! And nobody don’t know where he be. That’s what I’ve come all the way from Fallowhithe to tell Calidor.’