at the start of dinner. A footman was just passing a bowl of soup over Julia’s shoulder, when the skirt of Julia’s dress turned to snakes. Julia jumped up with a shriek. Soup poured over the snakes and flew far and wide, and the footman yelled, “Lord have mercy on us!” among the sounds of the smashing soup-bowl.
Then there was dead silence, except for the hissing of snakes. There were twenty of them, hanging by their tails from Julia’s waistband, writhing and striking. Everyone froze, with their heads stiffly turned Julia’s way. Julia stood like a statue, with her arms up out of reach of the snakes. She swallowed and said the words of a spell.
Nobody blamed her. Mr Saunders said, “Good girl!”
Under the spell, the snakes stiffened and fanned out, so that they were standing like a ballet skirt above Julia’s petticoats. Everyone could see where Julia had torn a flounce of a petticoat building the tree-house and mended it in a hurry with red darning wool.
“Have you been bitten?” said Chrestomanci.
“No,” said Julia. “The soup muddled them. If you don’t mind, I’ll go and change this dress now.”
She left the room, walking very slowly and carefully, and Millie went with her. While the footmen, all rather green in the face, were clearing up the spilt soup, Chrestomanci said, “Spitefulness is one thing I won’t have at the dinner-table. Gwendolen, oblige me by going to the playroom. Your food will be brought to you there.”
Gwendolen got up and went without a word. As Julia and Millie did not come back, the dining table seemed rather empty that evening. It was all stocks and shares from Bernard at one end, and statues again from Mr Saunders at the other.
Cat found that Gwendolen was rather triumphant. She felt she had made an impression on Chrestomanci at last. So she returned to the attack with a will on Sunday.
On Sunday, the Family dressed in its best and walked down to Morning Service at the village church. Witches are not supposed to like church. Nor are they supposed to be able to work magic there. But this never bothered Gwendolen at all. Mrs Sharp had many times remarked on it, as showing what exceptional talents Gwendolen had. Gwendolen sat next to Cat in the Chrestomanci pew, looking the picture of demure innocence in her broderie anglaise Sunday dress and hat, and found her place in her prayer book as if she were truly saintly.
The village people nudged one another and whispered about her. This rather pleased Gwendolen. She liked to be well-known. She kept up the pretence of saintliness until the sermon had begun.
The vicar climbed shakily into the pulpit and gave his text in a weak, wandering voice. “For there were many in the congregation that were not sanctified.” This was certainly to the point. Unfortunately, nothing else he said was.
He told, in his weak wandering voice, of weak wandering episodes in his early life. He compared them with weak wandering things he thought were happening in the world today. He told them they had better be sanctified or all sorts of things – which he forgot to mention – would happen, which reminded him of a weak and wandering thing his aunts used to tell him.
Mr Saunders was asleep by this time, and so was stocks-and-shares Bernard. The old lady with mittens was nodding. One of the saints in the stained-glass windows yawned, and put up his crozier elegantly to cover his mouth. He looked round at his neighbour, who was a formidable nun. Her robes hung in severe folds, like a bundle of sticks. The bishop stretched out his stained-glass crozier and tapped the nun on the shoulder. She resented it. She marched into his window and began shaking him.
Cat saw her. He saw the coloured transparent bishop clouting the nun over the wimple, and the nun giving him as good as she got. Meanwhile, the hairy saint next to them made a dive for his neighbour, who was a kingly sort of saint, holding a model of the Castle. The kingly saint dropped his model and fled for protection, in a twinkle of glassy feet, behind the robes of a simpering lady saint. The hairy saint jumped gleefully up and down on the model of the Castle.
One by one, all the windows came to life. Almost every saint turned and fought the one next to him. Those who had no one to fight, either hitched up their robes and did silly dances, or waved to the vicar, who rambled on without noticing. The little tiny people blowing trumpets in the corners of the windows sprang and gambolled and frisked, and pulled transparent faces at anyone who was looking. The hairy saint winkled the kingly one out from behind the simpering lady and chased him from window to window in and out of all the other fighting couples.
By this time, the whole congregation had seen. Everyone stared, or whispered, or leant craning this way and that to watch the twinkling glass toes of the kingly saint.
There was such a disturbance that Mr Saunders woke up, puzzled. He looked at the windows, understood, and looked sharply at Gwendolen. She sat with her eyes demurely cast down, the picture of innocence. Cat glanced at Chrestomanci. For all he could tell, Chrestomanci was attending to the vicar’s every word and had not even noticed the windows. Millie was sitting on the edge of her seat, looking agitated. And the vicar still rambled on, quite unconscious of the turmoil.
The curate, however, felt he ought to put a stop to the unseemly behaviour of the windows. He fetched a cross and a candle. Followed by a giggling choirboy swinging incense, he went from window to window murmuring exorcisms. Gwendolen obligingly stopped each saint in its tracks as he came to it – which meant that the kingly saint was stranded halfway across the wall. But, as soon as the curate’s back was turned, he began to run again, and the free-for-all went on more riotously than before. The congregation rolled about, gasping.
Chrestomanci turned and looked at Mr Saunders. Mr Saunders nodded. There was a sort of flicker, which jolted Cat where he sat, and, when he looked at the windows, every saint was standing stiff and glassy there, as they should be.
Gwendolen’s head came up indignantly. Then she shrugged. At the back of the church, a great stone crusader sat up on his tomb and, with much rasping of stone, thumbed his nose at the vicar.
“Dearly beloved—” said the vicar. He saw the crusader. He stopped, confounded.
The curate hastened up and tried to exorcise the crusader. A look of irritation crossed the crusader’s face. He lifted his great stone sword. But Mr Saunders made a sharp gesture. The crusader, looking even more irritated, lowered his sword and lay down again with a thump that shook the church.
“There are some in this congregation who are certainly not sanctified,” the vicar said sadly. “Let us pray.”
When everyone straggled out of church, Gwendolen sauntered out among them, quite impervious to the shocked looks everyone gave her as she passed. Millie hurried after her and seized her arm. She looked most upset.
“That was disgraceful, you ungodly child! I don’t dare speak to the poor vicar. There is such a thing as going too far, you know!”
“Have I gone it?” Gwendolen asked, really interested.
“Very nearly,” said Millie.
But not quite, it seemed. Chrestomanci did not say anything to Gwendolen, though he said a great deal, very soothingly, both to the vicar and to the curate.
“Why doesn’t your father tell Gwendolen off?” Cat asked Roger as they walked back up the avenue. “Taking no notice of her just makes her worse.”
“I don’t know,” said Roger. “He comes down on us hard enough if we use witchcraft. Perhaps he thinks she’ll get tired of it. Has she told you what she’s
