Not Just a Witch (11 page)

After which a new life began for Dora Mayberry. Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays, the tall, dark man who had brought the message from Heckie came to tea. She didn’t like to ask him too many questions, but she learnt that he was called Lewis Kingman (she had already noticed the initials L.K. stamped on his wallet) and that he worked in insurance. But he wasn’t happy in his work and now, biting into a chocolate cup cake, he told her what he wanted to do with his life.

‘You see, dearest Dora, I feel I cannot go on living in town,’ he said. ‘My lungs are delicate. I need to be in the country. Somewhere open and clean. In a house like this.’ And from the pocket of his suit he brought out a picture.

‘What a pretty place!’ said Dora. ‘The dovecote and the trees, and the way the river runs through the garden!’

‘It’s called Paradise Cottage,’ said Mr Knacksap. ‘And what I want more than anything else in the world, is to live there with you!’

For a moment he wondered whether to go down on his knees, but Dora wasn’t very good at dusting, and anyway there was no need – the silly witch was looking adoringly into his eyes.

‘Oh, Lewis!’ she said. ‘You mean you want to marry me?’

‘I do,’ said Mr Knacksap.

The next day, he bought two of the cheapest engagement rings he could find and had them engraved with his initials. But it wasn’t of the two bamboozled witches that he was thinking as he left the shop. It was of a man in a distant country who was almost as crazy and greedy as he was himself.

The name of this man was Abdul el Hammed and he was an exceedingly rich sheikh who lived between the Zagros Mountains and the Caspian Sea. The sheikh was rich because his country was full of oil wells, but he was also very old-fashioned – so old-fashioned that he had one hundred and fifty wives, just as Eastern rulers used to do in the olden days. The wives lived in a palace all of their own and the sheikh liked to show them off, all dressed alike in beautiful clothes and fabulous jewellery, so that everyone would be amazed that anyone could have so many women and be so generous.

In the summer, the country in which the sheikh lived was very hot, but in the winter, because there were high mountains near by, it was very cold – and it was then that he liked to dress his one hundred and fifty wives in valuable fur coats. But it is not easy to find a hundred and fifty coats made of priceless skins and all alike. The sheikh had been looking round and had sent messengers to all the furriers in Europe and he had not found what he was looking for.

This sheikh wanted to see every one of his wives dressed in a coat made of snow leopards.

Tigers are beautiful and exciting, so are jaguars and ocelots, and people who like fur coats swear by sable or mink. But in all the world, there is nothing like a coat made of snow leopards.

Snow leopards live in the highest mountains in the world – on the slopes of the Himalayas and the Karakoram, where there are no people, only ice and eagles and the sighing of the wind. They are so graceful and so fearless – and above all so rare – that to look at one is to feel a lump come into your throat. There are so few left now that to shoot or trap one is to risk being sent to prison and only a person with no soul would dream of trying it. To kill one snow leopard and make his skin into a fur coat would be almost impossible. To find three hundred (because at least two leopards are needed for a single coat) . . . well, no one but a mad, rich sheikh would even dream of it.

But the sheikh Abdul el Hammed did dream of it. The more he couldn’t have what he wanted, the more he was determined to have it. He had offered a thousand pounds for a snow leopard skin and then fifteen hundred, and at last two thousand and more just for one skin. But there simply weren’t any snow leopards to be had. Not even the greediest people were willing to break the law which protected these marvellous and unusual beasts.

And then came the day when Mr Flitchbody, a skin trader who operated in London, but had a network of trappers and hunters all over the world, got a telephone call.

‘Hello. Is that you, Flitchbody?’ a throaty voice said.

‘Yes, Flitchbody speaking. Who is that?’

‘It’s Knacksap here. Lionel Knacksap from Wellbridge. Tell me, is that sheikh of yours still after snow leopard pelts?’

‘You bet he is. Three hundred, he wants, and he’ll sell his soul to get them – and I can’t find one.’

‘Well, I can,’ said Mr Knacksap. ‘I can get him the full quantity. If the price is right.’

‘The price is two thousand eight hundred per skin and I take ten per cent. But I don’t believe you for a moment.’

‘Well, you’d better believe me. I’ve found someone who’s been breeding them in secret. I can send you the bodies, but you’ll have to get them skinned down in London and no questions asked. Can you fix that?’

‘I can fix it. But I still think you’re bluffing.’

‘Well, I’m not. I’ll want the money in cash. Three-quarters of a million in notes, can you do that?’

‘If you can get me three hundred snow leopards, there’s nothing I can’t do.’

‘I’ll keep you posted,’ said Mr Knacksap, and put down the phone.

Mr Knacksap and Heckie were sitting side by side on Heckie’s sofa and being romantic. Mr Knacksap was holding Heckie’s hand – the one that didn’t have the Knuckle of Power – and they were looking into the gas fire and dreaming dreams.

Or rather, Mr Knacksap was dreaming dreams. Heckie’s foot had gone to sleep which sometimes happens when you are being romantic, but she didn’t like to say so.

‘I was thinking, my dear,’ said Mr Knacksap, ‘about when we are married and living in our cottage in the hills. Paradise Cottage.’

‘Yes, dear?’ said Heckie. ‘What were you thinking about it?’

‘I was thinking how beautiful the mountains are up there. Beautiful, but bare. Terribly bare.’

‘Well, yes. Of course there is the heather, isn’t there?’ said Heckie. ‘That’s very pretty when it flowers.’

‘But it only flowers in August. I would like to be able to look up at the hills and see them covered with something really wonderful. With animals that are happy in high places and that are graceful and lovely and a joy to gaze at all the year round. Heather is all right for ladies,’ said Mr Knacksap, ‘but gentlemen like something a little stronger.’

‘What sort of something?’ Heckie wanted to know.

Mr Knacksap let go of her hand and turned to look into her eyes. ‘I am going to tell you a secret, Hecate,’ he said. ‘Something I’ve not told anyone in my life. Always, I’ve had the same dream. That I wake in the morning and I look up – and there, on the mountain-side above me, are the loveliest and most impressive animals in the world.’

Heckie was very interested. ‘Really, dear? And what are they?’

Mr Knacksap blew his nose. Then he said: ‘Snow leopards.’

‘Snow leopards?’ Heckie was very surprised. ‘But, dearest, you don’t find snow leopards in the Lake District. They’re not English things at all. You find them in the Himalayas.’

‘I know, dearest,’ said Mr Knacksap. ‘So far you don’t find them in England. But you
could
.’ He seized both her hands. ‘You could make my dream come true,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘You, my dearest, sweetest witch, could fill the hillside with snow leopards. You could grant me my greatest wish! Every morning I would lift up my eyes and there they would be! They’re the most valuable . . . I mean, the most beautiful creatures in the world. Their pelts . . . I mean, their fur, is the deepest, the palest; their tails are thick and long. They have golden eyes and every day as I ate my porridge and kippers, which you would cook for me, I would see them roaming free and lovely over the hills. If I could do that, I think I would be the happiest man in the world.’

He looked sideways under his sinister eyebrows at Heckie who was looking very worried indeed.

‘But, dearest, a whole hillside of snow leopards . . . I don’t see how I could do that. And I’m afraid they’d eat the sheep.’

‘Oh, but once the snow leopards came, it would become an animal reserve, that’s certain. And think of the tourist trade, and the work it would bring to the unemployed.’

‘I could make one or two leopards for you; I’m sure to meet one or two really wicked people before we get married. But a whole hillside – I don’t see how I could possibly do that. How many do you want?’

‘Three hundred!’ said Mr Knacksap firmly. ‘At least.’

Heckie leapt to her feet. ‘Three hundred! My dearest Li-Li, that’s quite impossible. There probably aren’t three hundred wicked people in Britain, let alone Wellbridge!’

‘Yes, there are, my treasure. There are three hundred wicked people right here in this town. Very wicked people. Murderers and terrorists and embezzlers and thugs. People who shouldn’t be eating their heads off at the government’s expense. People who’d be much happier roaming the hills as free and graceful leopards for me to look at when I ate my kippers.’

‘But where?’ asked Heckie. ‘What do you mean?’

‘In the prison, of course. In Wellbridge prison not a mile from here.’

He leant back, well pleased with himself, and waited for Heckie to tell him how clever he was.

‘You mean you want me to turn all the prisoners into leopards?’ asked Heckie, looking stunned.

‘I do,’ said the furrier smugly.

The witch shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Li-Li, but I can’t do that.’

Mr Knacksap was absolutely furious. How
dare
she go against his wishes? ‘Can’t! What do you mean, you can’t?’ he said, and turned away so that she wouldn’t see him grinding his teeth.

Heckie sighed. ‘You see, people get sent to prison for all sorts of things. There’s no way I could be sure that all of them are wicked. If someone had bopped his mother-in-law with a meat cleaver, he mightn’t be really bad. It would depend—’

‘Everybody in Wellbridge jail is bad,’ hissed the furrier. ‘It’s a high security prison. That means that anyone who gets out will certainly strike again. And anyway, I’d have thought you’d want to make your Li-Li happy. I’d have thought—’

‘I do want to make you happy,’ said Heckie. ‘I want to
terribly
. But one has to do what is
right
and changing people who are not wicked is Not Right.’

It was at this moment that the doorbell rang and Daniel and Joe came in, carefully carrying a large, round box covered in brown paper.

‘We took this from the delivery boy,’ said Joe. ‘It’s addressed to both of you. I expect it’s a wedding present.’

He handed the box to the furrier who took it and simpered. If people were sending silver or valuable glass, he’d have to be sure of getting it to his place so that he could sell it before he bolted for Spain.

‘But where’s the dragworm?’ asked Heckie, looking at Daniel. ‘I thought you were taking him out.’

‘I was,’ said Daniel. ‘But I met Sumi and she wanted to take him for a bit.’

Heckie nodded and smiled at Mr Knacksap who was eagerly undoing the parcel. Perhaps it was a soup tureen, thought the furrier – that could fetch a couple of hundred. Or an antique clock . . . But as he tore off the wrappings, his look of greed turned to one of puzzlement. For there seemed to be holes in the cardboard box and surely neither soup tureens nor clocks needed to breathe?

‘Ugh! It’s a monster! A horrible diseased THING full of boils. Get rid of it! Get it out! Shoo!’

The boys stood very still and looked at Heckie. Now at last she would see! It had been very hard to bring Heckie’s familiar into the room, knowing what would happen to him, but the children would have done anything to save the witch.

‘It’s the dragworm, Heckie,’ said Daniel quietly.

Too late, Mr Knacksap realized his mistake. He began to cough and splutter and totter round the room. ‘Oh, help! My asthma! I’m choking! I can’t breathe!’

But for once, Heckie didn’t rush to the furrier’s side. She had gathered up the dragworm, so shocked by what she saw that at first she couldn’t speak.

Her familiar had been in a bad way when he was close to Mrs Winneypeg, but it was nothing to the state he was in now. The hair on his topknot wasn’t just white, it was as brittle as that of a ninety-year-old. Some of his scales had actually flaked off, his eyes were filmed over. As for his other end – the most hardened sick nurse would have shed tears when she saw the dragworm’s tail.

‘Oh, you poor, poor love; you poor thing!’ cried Heckie – and as she stroked his head, there came from his throat that ghostly, faint, heartbreaking: ‘Quack!’

‘I don’t understand it,’ said Heckie. ‘What has happened? What made him come on like that?’

It was Joe who spoke. ‘He did. Mr Knacksap did. That’s why we brought the dragworm, so that you could see what kind of a person—’

‘Stop it! That’s enough!’ Heckie’s pop eyes snapped with temper. ‘How
dare
you speak like that about the man I’m going to marry?’

But she looked at Mr Knacksap in a very puzzled way.

The furrier, though, had recovered himself. Still pretending to cough and wheeze, he drew himself up to his full height and pointed at the boys.

‘You lying, evil children! How dare you tell poor Heckie such untruths? As though I didn’t see you. I saw you quite distinctly taking this poor, sensitive creature right up to the prison gate and along the prison walls. Quite distinctly, I saw you, and I thought then how foolish it was to risk him like that.’

‘We didn’t!’ said Daniel and Joe together. ‘Honestly we didn’t! We wouldn’t do a silly thing like that.’

‘In the tartan shopping basket,’ Mr Knacksap went on. ‘I saw you not half an hour ago.’ He turned to Heckie. ‘Now will you believe me? Now will you believe me when I tell you how evil those prisoners are?’

Heckie looked desperately from the furrier to the boys and back again. She was a sensible witch, but no one can be in love and stay sensible for long.

‘Oh, Daniel . . . Joe . . . that was foolish of you. Run along now and I’ll put him in the bath. He’ll soon be better.’

So the children left, wretched and defeated, having made the dragworm ill for nothing. And that night, Heckie phoned the furrier.

‘All right, Lionel,’ she said wearily. ‘I’ll do what you ask. You shall have your leopards.’