Bedknob and Broomstick Part 9

"Well, it's all right," said Charles, staring at Paul, who looked unusually clean and round-eyed.

"What's all right?" asked Carey.

"Paul's bed."

"I wasn't looking at Paul's bed," said Carey.

Charles followed the direction of her eyes. Miss Price's bed had a white embroidered spread, and a black silk nightdress case lay on the pillow. It was an exciting nightdress case, closely related to a tea cozy, trimmed with satin blobs like colored fruit.

"You are dense," said Carey. "The bed itself!"

Charles stared.

It was a very ordinary bra.s.s bed-a bed like a hundred others. But where at its head there should have been a second bed-k.n.o.b, the right-hand post ended in a piece of rusty screw.

"Yes," said Charles. He sat down rather suddenly on the foot of Paul's sofa.

"Is it, do you think?" asked Carey anxiously.

Charles cleared his throat. "Yes," he said soberly, "yes, it must be!"

"There are hundreds of beds like that. She may have had it for years. She may have bought it at the same time as Aunt Beatrice bought hers."

"Yes," said Charles. He seemed dazed. "But the screw. I think it is. It must be it. She must have bought it at the sale." He turned to Carey. "We can easily tell. Go and get the bed-k.n.o.b."

"That's just it," said Carey. "The bed-k.n.o.b's gone!"

"Gone?"

"Yes. When I'd finished bathing Paul, Miss Price had done the unpacking. I've been through everything. You can look yourself. It's gone."

"She's taken it," said Charles.

"Yes, she's taken it."

"Oh, gos.h.!.+" said Charles. There was a world of disillusion and sadness in his voice.

Paul lay staring at them glumly over his neatly turned-down sheet.

3 IN FOR A PENNY.

Yes, now they were there "the cupboard was bare!" Oh, it wasn't that she wasn't glad to see them; it wasn't that she wasn't very kind and had made up that lovely bed for Paul on the sofa in her room. It wasn't that she didn't plan delightful picnics to Pepperinge Eye and Lowbody Farm, and the Roman Remains; and read to them at night, and teach them croquet. It was just that she had given up magic. She seemed to have given up for good and all. She seemed to have forgotten that she ever knew it. Right behind the bottled fruits in the larder Paul did once see some pink and blue, which he thought might be the chart of the Zodiac, but he didn't get a chance to look properly as the door was nearly always kept locked.

All their excitement, all their planning, seemed to have gone for nothing until one day- It was Carey's job to put the cleaned shoes by each person's bed at night all ready for morning. About a week after they had arrived, when she had forgotten them the night before, she had to creep down before breakfast to fetch Paul's shoes from the scullery. As Paul slept on the sofa in Miss Price's room, it meant that Carey had to open that door very, very quietly so she could slip in without awaking Miss Price. Well, that was the morning when she found Miss Price's bed had gone.

A faint (the very faintest) film of dust and a pair of quilted slippers marked the place where it had stood. The coverlet was neatly folded on the chest of drawers, and not another thing was out of place. Paul's clothes lay tidily upon his chair, his sofa stood in its usual corner, but Paul himself was nowhere to be seen.

Carey ran down to the pa.s.sage to call Charles, and he came with her, slowly and sleepily, to see the empty room. They talked it over. They could hardly believe it.

"I told you it was the bed," Charles reminded Carey. "I knew it by that piece of rusty screw."

"But behind our backs!" exclaimed Carey. "To have pretended to have given up magic, and then to go and do a thing like this-behind our backs."

As Carey dressed, she grew angrier and angrier. She cleaned her teeth so viciously that she made the gums bleed. She nearly exploded when she heard the b.u.mp in Miss Price's room, and Paul's cheerful voice asking if there were raspberries for breakfast.

But barely had she and Charles sat down at table when Miss Price appeared, followed by Paul. Miss Price, looking brisk and neat, and not at all out of the ordinary, went straight to the sideboard to serve the porridge. Paul, who looked as if he had dressed hurriedly, sidled into his place. Except for his unbrushed hair and pullover back to front, he, too, looked quite normal. When Miss Price came to the table with the porridge, there was a look of exhilaration about her as if she had had a cold bath. "A lovely day," she said cheerfully as she poured out the coffee. She smiled round the table at the children. "What are we going to do with it?"

Carey's face became wooden. "We haven't thought," she said coldly.

"What about a picnic lunch on the Roman Remains?" suggested Miss Price, undaunted.

"I don't think people should picnic on Roman remains," said Carey.

Miss Price gave her a curious look, and then she turned to Charles. "Have you any suggestions, Charles?"

"What is Paul going to do?" asked Charles suspiciously.

Miss Price looked a little taken aback. "Why, go with you. Unless, perhaps, you go to the Roman Remains. That is a little far-"

"I think," said Charles, "we should go somewhere where Paul can come too."

Miss Price looked surprised. "Well, of course, that would be nicer. I just thought-that sometimes you and Carey like to do things on your own-"

"No," said Carey firmly, "we like Paul with us. Always."

Miss Price looked really surprised at this. And so did Paul. He sat with his porridge spoon aslant, dripping milk down the front of his jersey.

"Paul!" said Miss Price sharply. Paul came to and swallowed the porridge, and Miss Price wiped off the drips.

"Well, children," said Miss Price at the end of breakfast, "you must make your own plans. I have my music lessons, but I shall be free by lunch time. Go to the bathroom, please, Paul."

Carey and Charles went out in the garden to wait for Paul.

He emerged with a burst almost immediately, his voice raised in a tuneless rendering of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." Quickly and silently Charles and Carey took him each by an arm and pulled him through the hedge into the meadow. They walked him out of earshot of the house, and then they sat him down in the long gra.s.s, still holding him.

"Paul," said Carey sternly, in a fair imitation of Aunt Beatrice's voice, "it's no good hedging. Charles and I know all."

Paul looked bewildered and tried to pull his arms free.

"You and Miss Price," went on Carey, "have been off on the bed. It's no good lying. Charles and I saw."

Paul looked unperturbed. "Did you see us go?" he asked.

"Never mind," said Carey darkly.

Paul, sensing their mood, sat still. He just looked bored like a pony tied to a stall.

"Well?" said Carey. "What have you to say?"

It seemed Paul had nothing to say. He fidgeted with his feet and did not look even interested.

"Have you been often?"

"No," said Paul, making a not very determined effort to pull his wrist free, "we were only trying it."

"Is this the first time you've tried it?"

"Yes."

"Did it work all right?" asked Charles. He sounded more friendly suddenly.

"Yes."

Carey let go Paul's wrist. "Where did you go, Paul?"

Paul smiled.

"Tell us, Paul," urged Carey. "We're sure to find out."

"Guess," said Paul.

"All right. You must answer 'yes' or 'no,' and you can say 'sort of.'"

"Was it in the western hemisphere?" asked Charles.

"No," said Paul.

"Was it the eastern hemisphere?" asked Carey.

"No," said Paul.

"Then it wasn't in the world!" exclaimed Charles.

"Yes. It was in the world," said Paul.

"Well, then it must have been in the western or the eastern hemisphere."

"No," said Paul. "It wasn't anywhere like that."

"He doesn't know what hemisphere means," Charles suggested.

Paul looked stubborn. "Yes, I know what it means."

"What does it mean?"

"Well-it means- It doesn't mean Blowditch."

"Is that where you went?"

"Yes."

"You only went as far as Blowditch?"

"Yes."

"Why, you could walk there," exclaimed Charles.

"It was only to see if it worked," explained Paul.

"Did you ask Miss Price if you could try it?"

"No. She asked me. She said: 'Let's give it a little twist. I don't suppose it still works.' "

"Spells don't wear out," said Carey.

"How do you know?" asked Charles.

"Well, it stands to reason," replied Carey.

They were silent awhile. Then Carey said tolerantly: "I can understand how it happened. But I don't think it's at all fair. And I never have thought it fair that Paul was the only one who could work it."

"Well, it was his k.n.o.b," said Charles. "We mustn't grumble. There are people who would give anything for a magic bed-k.n.o.b, whoever had to work it."

"Yes," agreed Carey, "I know. But, as they've had a turn, I think we ought to have a turn too. Miss Price can do as she likes for herself, but we never said we'd give up magic."

"I don't see how we could manage it," said Charles, "not with the bed in Miss Price's room."

Carey tossed back her braids. "I shall just go to Miss Price in a straightforward way and ask her right out."

Charles, slightly awed, was silent.

"And there's another thing," Carey went on. "Do you remember that when Miss Price gave us the spell, she said that if we turned the k.n.o.b backwards the bed would take us into the past? Well, I think she ought to let us have one go at the past. After that, we could give it up-for a bit," she added, "though I don't see what all this giving up of magic does for anybody. You'd think it might be used for the defense scheme or something."

"Carey!" exclaimed Charles, deeply shocked.

Carey, a little subdued, broke off a stalk of sorrel and chewed it pensively. "I suppose you're right," she admitted after a moment. She had sudden visions of dragons breathing fire and mustard gas and whole armies turning into white mice. It would be terrible, unthinkable, to have one's brother, say, invalided out of the army as a white mouse, kept for the rest of his life in a cage on the drawing room table. And where would you pin the medals on a mouse?

"You see," said Charles, "Miss Price is quite right in some ways. You can overdo things."

"I know," Carey admitted. "But I don't see how it would hurt anybody if we just had a little trip into the past."

"Well, there's no harm in asking," said Charles.

They cornered Miss Price after supper. She listened to their argument; she saw the justice of what they said; but she threw up her hands and said: "Oh dear, oh dear!"

They tried to rea.s.sure her; they were very reasonable and very moderate. "Just one more go, Miss Price, and after that we'll give it up. It's a pity to waste the past."

"I don't like it," Miss Price kept saying. "I don't like it. If you were stuck or anything, I couldn't get you out. I've burnt the books."