past Millie, and she was crying. Millie handed Fiddle carefully to Julia and put her arms round Janet. Janet sobbed heavily. The rest crowded round her. Bernard patted Janet’s back and the old lady with mittens made soothing noises.
Cat stood on his own near the ruins, with the dragon looking enquiringly up at him from the grass. Janet had been happy in her own world. She had missed her mother and father. Now she was probably in this world for good, and Cat had done it. And Chrestomanci had called Gwendolen selfish!
“No, it’s not that, quite, really,” Janet said from the midst of the Family. She tried to sit down on the fallen block of stone, and got up quickly, remembering the way it was being used when she last saw it.
Cat had a very gallant idea. He sent for a blue velvet chair from Gwendolen’s room and put it down on the grass beside Janet. Janet gave a tearful laugh. “That was kind.” She started to sit in it.
“I belong to Chrestomanci Castle,” said the chair. “I belong to Chresto—” Miss Bessemer looked at it sternly and it stopped.
Janet sat in the chair. It was a little wobbly because the grass was uneven. “Where’s Cat?” she said anxiously.
“I’m here,” said Cat. “I got the chair for you.” He thought it was kind of Janet to look so relieved to see him.
“What do you say to a little lunch?” Millie asked Miss Bessemer. “It must be nearly two o’clock.”
“Agreed,” said Miss Bessemer, and made a stately half-turn towards the butler. He nodded. The footman and the gardeners staggered forward with great hampers like laundry baskets, which, when the lids were thrown back, proved to be full of chickens, hams, meat-pies, jellies, fruit and wine.
“Oh, beautiful!” said Roger.
Everyone sat round to eat the lunch. Most of them sat on the grass, and Cat made sure to sit as far away from Will Suggins as he could. Millie sat on the stone slab. Chrestomanci splashed some of the water from the bubbling spring over his face – which seemed to refresh him wonderfully – and sat leaning against the slab. The old lady with mittens produced a tuffet out of nowhere, which she said was more comfortable; and Bernard thoughtfully shook out the remains of the rope that Cat had left by the rock. It became a hammock. Bernard strung it between the pillars of the archway and lay in it, looking defiantly comfortable, even though he had the greatest difficulty keeping his balance and eating as well. Fiddle was given a wing of chicken and took it into the apple tree to eat, out of the way of the dragon. The dragon was jealous of Fiddle. It divided its time between breathing resentful smoke up into the tree and leaning heavily against Cat, begging for chicken and meat-pie.
“I warn you,” said Mr Saunders. “That is the most spoilt dragon in the world.”
“I’m the only dragon in the world,” the dragon said smugly.
Janet was still inclined to be tearful. “My dear, we do understand,” said Millie, “and we’re so very sorry.”
“I can send you back,” said Chrestomanci. “It’s not quite so easy with Gwendolen’s world missing from the series, but don’t think it can’t be done.”
“No, no. That’s all right,” Janet gulped. “At least, it will be all right when I’m used to it. I was hoping to come back here – but it is rather a wrench. You see—” Her eyes filled and her mouth trembled. A handkerchief came out of the air and pushed itself into her hand. Cat did not know who had done it, but he wished he had thought of it.
“Thanks,” said Janet. “You see, Mum and Dad haven’t noticed the difference.” She blew her nose furiously. “I got back to my bedroom, and the other girl – she’s called Romillia really – had been writing her diary. She got called away in mid-sentence and left it lying there, so I read it. And it was all about how scared she had been in case my parents noticed she wasn’t me, and how glad she was when she was clever enough to make sure they didn’t. She was utterly terrified of being sent back. She’d had a dreadful life as an orphan in her own world, and she was miserable there. She’d written things that made me feel sorry for her. Mind you,” Janet said severely, “she was just asking for trouble keeping a diary in the same house as my parents. I wrote a note in it telling her so, and I said if she must keep one, she’d better put it in one of my good hiding places. And then – and then I sat there and rather hoped I’d come back.”
“That was kind of you,” said Cat.
“It was, and you’re truly welcome, my love,” said Millie.
“You’re sure?” Chrestomanci asked, looking searchingly at Janet over the chicken leg he was eating.
Janet nodded, quite firmly, though most of her face was still hidden in the handkerchief.
“You were the one I was most worried about,” Chrestomanci said. “I’m afraid I didn’t realise at once what had happened. Gwendolen had found out about the mirror, you see, and she worked the change in her bathroom. And anyway, none of us had the slightest idea Cat’s powers were that strong. The truth only dawned on me during the unfortunate affair of the frog, and then of course I took a look at once to see what had happened to Gwendolen and the seven other girls. Gwendolen was in her element. And Jennifer, who came after Romillia, is as tough as Gwendolen and has always wished she was an orphan; whereas Queen Caroline, whom Gwendolen displaced, was as miserable as Romillia, and had run away three times already. And it was the same with the other five. They were all much better suited – except perhaps you.”
Janet took her face out of the handkerchief and looked at him in large indignation. “Why couldn’t you have told me you knew? I wouldn’t have been nearly so scared of you! And you wouldn’t believe the troubles Cat got into because of it, not to speak of me owing Mr Bagwash twenty pounds and not knowing the Geography and History here! And you needn’t laugh!” she said, as nearly everyone did.
“I apologise,” said Chrestomanci. “Believe me, it was one of the most troubling decisions I’ve ever had to make. But who on earth is Mr Bagwash?”
“Mr Baslam,” Cat explained reluctantly. “Gwendolen bought some dragon’s blood from him and didn’t really pay.”
“He’s asking outrageously much,” said Millie. “And it is illegal, you know.”
“I’ll go and have a word with him tomorrow,” Bernard said from his hammock. “Though he’ll probably be gone by then. He knows I’ve got my eye on him.”
“Why was it a troubling decision?” Janet asked Chrestomanci.
Chrestomanci tossed his chicken bone to the dragon and slowly wiped his fingers on a handkerchief with a gold-embroidered C in one corner. This gave him an excuse to turn Cat’s way and stare, in his vaguest way, into the air above Cat’s head. Since Cat was fairly clear by now that the vaguer Chrestomanci seemed about something, the more acutely he was attending to it, he was not altogether surprised when Chrestomanci said, “Because of Cat. We would have felt a good deal easier if Cat could have brought himself to tell someone what had happened. We gave him a number of opportunities to. But when he held his tongue, we thought perhaps he did know the extent of his powers after all.”
“But I don’t,” said Cat. And Janet, who was becoming thoroughly cheerful now she was being allowed to ask questions, said, “I think you were quite wrong. We both got so frightened that we came into this garden and nearly got you and Cat killed. You should have said.”
