This was not to be. At breakfast, Chrestomanci appeared (in a sea-green dressing gown with a design of waves breaking on it) to tell Cat and Tonino that they were catching the ten thirty train to Dulwich to visit Gabriel de Witt. Then he went away and Millie who looked very tired from having sat up half the night with Janet rustled in to give them their train fare.
Tonino frowned. I do not understand. Was not Monsignor de Witt the former Chrestomanci, Lady Chant?
Call me Millie, please, said Millie. Yes, thats right. Gabriel stayed in the post until he felt Christopher was ready to take over and then he retired Oh, I see! You thought he was dead! Oh no, far from it. Gabriels as lively and sharp as ever he was, youll see.
There was a time when Cat had thought that the last Chrestomanci was dead too. He had thought that the present Chrestomanci had to die before the next one took over, and he used to watch this Chrestomanci rather anxiously in case Chrestomanci showed signs of losing his last two lives and thrusting Cat into all the huge responsibility of looking after the magic in this world. He had been quite relieved to find it was more normal than that.
Theres nothing to worry about, Millie said. Mordecai Roberts is going to meet you at the station and then hell take you back there in a cab after lunch. And Tom is going to drive you to the station here in the car and meet you off the three nineteen when you get back. Heres the money, Cat, and an extra five shillings in case you need a snack on the way back because efficient as I know Miss Rosalie is, she doesnt have any idea how much boys need to eat. She never did have and she hasnt changed. And I want to hear all about it when you get home.
She gave them a warm hug each and rushed away, murmuring, Lemon barley, febrifuge in half an hour, and then the eye-salve.
Tonino pushed away his cocoa. I think I am ill on trains.
This proved to be true. Luckily Cat managed to get them a carriage to themselves after the young man who acted as Chrestomancis secretary had dropped them at the station. Tonino sat at the far corner of the smoky little space, with the window pulled down as low as it would go and his handkerchief pressed to his mouth. Though he did not actually bring up his breakfast, he went whiter and whiter, until Cat could hardly credit that a person could be so pale.
Were you like this all the way from Italy? Cat asked him, slightly awed.
Rather worse, Tonino said through the handkerchief, and swallowed desperately.
Cat knew he should sympathise. He got travel-sick himself, but only in cars. But instead of feeling sorry for Tonino, he did not know whether to feel superior or annoyed that Tonino, once again, was more to be pitied than he was.
At least it meant that Cat did not have to talk to him.
Dulwich was a pleasant village a little south of London and, once the train had chuffed away from the platform, full of fresh air swaying the trees. Tonino breathed the air deeply and began to get his colour back.
Bad traveller, is he? Mordecai Roberts asked sympathetically as he led them to the cab waiting for them outside the station.
This Mr Mordecai Roberts always puzzled Cat slightly. With his light, almost white, curly hair and his dark coffee complexion, he looked a great deal more foreign than Tonino did, and yet when he spoke it was in perfect, unforeign English. It was educated English, too, which was another puzzle, because Cat had always vaguely supposed that Mr Roberts was a sort of valet hired to look after Gabriel de Witt in his retirement. But Mr Roberts also seemed to be a strong magic user. He looked at Cat rather reproachfully as they got into the cab and said, There are hundreds of spells against travel sickness, you know.
I think I did stop him being sick, Cat said uncomfortably. Here was his old problem again, of not being sure when he was using magic and when he was not. But what really made Cat uncomfortable was the knowledge that if he had used magic on Tonino, it was not for Toninos sake. Cat hated seeing people be sick. Here he was doing a good thing for a bad selfish reason again. At this rate he was, quite definitely, going to end up as an evil enchanter.
Gabriel de Witt lived in a spacious, comfortable modern house with wide windows and a metal rail along
the roof in the latest style. It was set among trees in a new road that gave the house a view of the countryside beyond.
Miss Rosalie threw open its clean white front door and welcomed them all inside. She was a funny little woman with a lot of grey in her black hair, who always, invariably, wore grey lace mittens. She was another puzzle. There was a big gold wedding-ring lurking under the grey lace of her left-hand mitten, which Cat thought might mean she was married to Mr Roberts, but she always had to be called Miss Rosalie. For another thing, she behaved as if she was a witch. But she wasnt. As she shut the front door, she made brisk gestures as if she were setting wards of safety on it. But it was Mr Roberts who really set the wards.