Carbonel and Calidor

16. Middle Magic

WHEN JOHN and Rosemary reached the gallery they realized that, for the moment, escape was impossible. Mrs Witherspoon was standing in the hall at the foot of the stairs. There was no doubt that the voices they had heard were angry. In the open doorway stood Miss Dibdin: her sensible shoes planted squarely on the mat, a black cone on her head, and the broom trailing from one hand. There was nothing to do but wait and see what happened, and hope they would not be seen. They crouched down on the floor and peered through the carved rail that ran round the gallery.

Mrs Witherspoon, with Gullion on her shoulder, held a large china bowl in one hand, and in the other a bunch of leafy sprays, which they supposed she had just picked from the garden.

‘I thought I had made it quite clear, Dorothy, that I did not want you back at Tucket Towers!’ she said harshly.

‘I only came to fetch the toothbrush I left behind. I can hardly imagine that you want to keep it?’ replied Miss Dibdin coldly.

‘I suppose you came hopping along on your precious broomstick, like some monstrous great flea!’ said Mrs Witherspoon, laughing scornfully.

‘Well, that’s more than you can do!’ said Miss Dibdin. ‘I don’t believe you have even tried to make a Broom Magic.’

‘You have no idea what I can do,’ said Mrs Witherspoon, ‘or you’d be green with envy! So like you to imagine that a broomstick is the only way of flying. You’ve no imagination. And as for plain ignorance ...! Why, I don’t believe you even know the Three Orders of Magic!’

‘Well, if you’re so clever you can tell me. What are they?’ said Miss Dibdin sulkily.

‘First there is Lower Magic,’ replied Mrs Witherspoon in an arrogant voice. ‘That means small, easy, conjuring tricks, such as the making of Flying Philtres, Disappearing Drops and so on. Then there is Middle Magic, more difficult by far, for it deals with Time and Space and Tides ...’ Here her voice faded. She stared at Miss Dibdin with a faraway gaze.

‘Well?’ said Miss Dibdin impatiently. ‘And the third ...?’

Mrs Witherspoon shook herself, and gave a great sigh. ‘The Supreme Magic? That is only for the wisest of the Sinister Sisterhood. Perhaps even I shall never know the beauty and the power of it. But with Gullion’s help I do my best. So full of ideas is my little toadlet! You remember the field I sold the other day? Well, the last thing I want is a sprawl of houses spoiling the view from my windows.’

‘Then why did you sell it for building?’ asked Miss Dibdin.

‘Because I wanted more money. But Gullion has told me exactly what to do. He whispered a deliciously wicked scheme to me on my pillow last night.’ Mrs Witherspoon laughed shrilly. ‘It is just a matter of dropping the right herbs in the cement mixer, dancing round it at midnight, chanting the right words... .’

‘And what good will that do?’ said Miss Dibdin scornfully.

‘You mean what evil, dear?’ said Mrs Witherspoon. ‘Just this. What the builders build by day, will fall with a crash by night! Till at last they will become so discouraged they will give it up and go away.’

‘All this fine talk about that nasty toad! I don’t believe you know any more about magic than I do,’ said Miss Dibdin.

‘Do I not?’ said Mrs Witherspoon sweetly. She drew herself up to her full height. ‘Then you shall see for yourself! Watch, and here and now I will make a Middle Magic! I told you how sad I was that Tucket Towers had lost its splendour, as I knew it first as a young bride, before its treasures were sold and its buildings began to crumble?’

Miss Dibdin rolled her eyes, as much as to say she had heard it only too often, but Mrs Witherspoon took no notice. She raised her thin arms, and twirled round on her long thin feet, so that her black skirt flowed round her. ‘Watch, my little Dibdin,’ she cried. ‘Watch, and you shall see a Middle Magic!’

In spite of herself Miss Dibdin stepped eagerly forward, her hands clasped. The broom lay forgotten on the floor. There was no need to tell John and Rosemary to watch. They clung to the posts of the carved rail with both hands, and craned their heads through the gap between till their ears hurt.

Mrs Witherspoon was moving about the hall below, muttering under her breath; and as she muttered the tick of the grandfather clock seemed to grow louder. First she pulled a little rickety table out from the wall until it stood in front of the clock.

In the middle of the table she placed Gullion, having first planted a kiss on his warty head; and beside Gullion she placed the china bowl. High up in the gallery, on the opposite side, John and Rosemary could see her every movement.

‘Front row of the dress circle!’ whispered John. Rosemary ignored him. The knuckles of both her hands were white with concentration. They could see that the china bowl was filled with a dark liquid which crinkled and dimpled as though it was boiling, although there was no flame underneath.

‘Mutter ... mutter!’ went Mrs Witherspoon. ‘Tick ... Tock!’ went the grandfather clock, each stroke now echoing like stones falling down a well. Suddenly she pulled seven different leaves from the spray she held, and began dancing round the table from right to left. Seven times she swept round, pausing to curtsey to the clock as she completed each circle, and at the same time dropping a different leaf into the bowl, still muttering as she went. When six leaves were floating in the mixture, she stirred it with a bony finger. Then she flung up her arms and chanted in a solemn voice:

‘Whirling!

Swirling!

Twirling Time!

Listen to my magic rhyme.

Twixt the tick and the tock

Of the grandfather clock, Leave the present behind!

Fifty summers unwind.

That Tucket Towers

And I may be,

What once we were

For all to see!’

And suddenly the tick of the clock grew unbearably loud. ‘TICK ... TOCK ... TICK ... TOCK ... TICK ...’ But just before the third TOCK, whirling round for the seventh time, Mrs Witherspoon dropped the seventh leaf into the bowl. As she did so the dark liquid fizzed and bubbled and boiled over, and the grandfather clock went mad. The hands whizzed wildly backwards, with such a clamour of striking, and frantic beating of TICKS and TOCKS, that John and Rosemary let go the rails they had been clutching, and crouched down with their hands over their ears. When the racket subsided they opened their eyes again.

The only thing that seemed the same was Miss Dibdin. She stood, wide-eyed with wonder, looking rather forlorn in her shabby old mackintosh. The hall was brilliantly lit by a sudden burst of sunshine. It shone on a thick red carpet, on the gold frames of the massive pictures now hanging on the walls. It gleamed softly on the polish of the solid furniture which stood round the walls, and twinkled on the crystal chandelier which hung from the ceiling, and on silver candlesticks and salvers. There was not a cobweb to be seen.

In front of the grandfather clock, where old Mrs Witherspoon had stood in her rusty black skirt, was a slender young woman in a short pink dress. Her eyes were dark and lustrous, and her raven-black hair fell softly on either side of smooth cheeks, that were bright with excitement.

‘It has worked! It has really worked!’ cried the young woman, flinging her arms wide.

‘Excuse me,’ said Miss Dibdin in a puzzled voice. ‘But what has worked? And who are you?’

‘Why, who do you think, my poor old Dibdin? I’m Dulcie Witherspoon, as I used to be fifty years ago. It’s worked! It’s worked! I am young once more!’ She danced round the hall. ‘And everything is back again in its proper place. Just as it used to be! Who is the best witch now?’ she asked in a mocking voice.

Miss Dibdin stood with downcast head. Something shining trickled down her cheeks and fell with a plop on the toe of one of her sensible shoes.

‘You are the best witch, Dulcie,’ she said at last. But young Mrs Witherspoon was not listening. She was running round the hall on slender silk-clad legs, flinging open door after door and exclaiming with delight at what she saw inside each room. The grandfather clock was ticking lazily once more, as though nothing unusual had happened.

‘All the precious things I had to sell, back in their right places again! Even the crystal chandelier, and my darling piano! How I shall play and play! Gullion, my pet,’ she said, picking him up and whirling him round. ‘Now, you shall have your bath in a silver bowl every day!’

‘I see you did not have electric light fifty years ago. I suppose you’ll have to make do with candles,’ said Miss Dibdin with a sniff.

‘Oh don’t be such a spoil-sport, Dorothy!’

‘And it’s all very well whisking all these things back again, but what are the people who bought them going to say when they find they have disappeared? Stolen, they are!’ went on Miss Dibdin. ‘Why, you are no more than a common thief! And don’t forget, I only have your word for it that you really are Dulcie Witherspoon of Tucket Towers. Who else is going to believe you?’

‘Really, Dorothy! You only say that because you’re jealous,’ said young Mrs Witherspoon, stamping her slender foot in anger. ‘I wish you’d go back to your station. You’re just a source of irritation!’

There was a second’s pause, and then suddenly ... Miss Dibdin was no longer there! Where she had been standing was nothing but a wisp of smoke, which quickly melted into the shadows of the rafters.

Mrs Witherspoon raised startled hands, fingers spread, palms outwards. There, twisted round to the inside of her left hand winked the crimson stone of the Golden Gew-Gaw.

‘Good gracious!’ she said, as she thought to the empty air. ‘I wonder how that happened?’

John and Rosemary could have told her. ‘She must have been wearing it all the time,’ whispered John.

‘But with the stone twisted round so that no one should see it,’ said Rosemary. ‘Did you see it wink after poor Miss Dibdin had been wished away?’

‘In the mocking way it does when it has tricked you,’ said John.

‘Well, off I go round the house!’ said Mrs Witherspoon, who, although she was fifty years younger, seemed not to have lost the habit of talking to herself.

‘So much to explore! So much to do! And my darling Gullion shall come too, so he shall,’ And scooping up the toad she went dancing away with a click of her high heels.

‘Quick, now’s our chance!’ said John as the dining-room door closed behind her.

They scurried down the stairs, the thick carpet muffling their footsteps, and ran towards the open front door.

‘Miss Dibdin has left her broom behind,’ said John. ‘I felt quite sorry for her when she saw she was beaten, and Mrs Witherspoon was crowing over her.’

‘So did I,’ said Rosemary. ‘Let’s take the broom back to her.’ She picked it up, and they ran out into the sunshine.