Dear Dragon

by Sara Seale

  "And I want her to stay with me always," she said. "Make her stay, Pandragon."

  "Do you, Doone?" he replied non-committally. "Then you had better be your own advocate. Miss Brown and I don't appear to share your views."

  He left the room, leaving a small, uncomfortable silence behind him, then Doone said:

  "Now he's in one of his chieftain moods. What's an advocate?"

  "Someone who pleads your cause," said Alice thoughtfully.

  "Oh, then he meant me. If I plead my case you'll listen to me, won't you, Alice Brown?" said Doone coaxingly, but Alice's green eyes were still thoughtful and a little puzzled.

  "I don't know," she repied, aware that already these Pendragons were encroaching upon her, that the life she had led until yesterday was beginning to seem a little unreal against the surprising reality of the present.

  "In any case," she added briskly, "it's hardly a matter for either of us if Mr. Pendragon's mind is made up.

  "Pooh!" said Doone." Pendragon will do most things for for me."

  "Then why aren't you nicer to him?" countered Alice, seeing again that quick flash of pain on the dark face.

  "Because he's got what Keverne ought to have."

  "What's that?" asked Alice, startled.

  "Principal share in the mine. Keverne and Merryn hold far lesser shares, although they're Pendragons, too, and they both work for a salary when they all should be equal."

  "Well, they are only half-brothers. I suppose that's the reason," Alice suggested, and wondered why the mine was

  so important. She had vaguely thought there was very little tin left in Cornwall.

  "Well, Trelawny's not even that and she holds an equal share with Keir," said Doone, her black eyes flashing.

  "Who's Trelawny?" Alice asked, confused by yet another thread appearing in this strange family pattern.

  "A cousin. Keverne once wanted to marry her, but I heard Mrs. Biddle say she was after bigger game. I think now she meant Pendragon."

  "Why? Were they engaged?"

  "Of course not—though Mrs. Biddle says now Trelawny's inherited her father's share in the mine Pendragon will probably think again. It would consolidate everything, you see."

  "No, I don't" said Alice. "And I doubt if you do, either. You shouldn't repeat servants' gossip to strangers."

  "Now you sound like a Zombie again," said Doone, and added with a touch of malice, "Trelawny is very beautiful —not at all like you. Keverne should have had her, but Pendragon made him marry Emma."

  " Made!"

  "Oh, yes—Pendragon always gets what he wants. That's another reason, Mrs. Biddle says, that points which way the wind might blow."

  "Mrs. Biddle, it would appear, talks too much in the hearing of little girls who have no business to know about such things," said Alice With sudden asperity. "We're forgetting the game. It's your throw, Doone—you only need a five or a six to up that ladder."

  When, much later, Emma came to help Doone get ready for bed, Alice slipped away to her own room, conscious that the afternoon had tired her, and she was disturbed by the child's unguarded revelations. Was it true that Keverne had somehow been forced into a marriage not of his choosing, and did that account for Emma's strange apathy and devotion to her boy? Was it consequently implied that Pendragon had marked the beautiful cousin for himself when, in the course of time she should inherit her father's share in the mine, or were these things only the precocious imaginings of a child too prone to listen to gossiping servants?

  "In either case, it can't concern you, Alice Brown— you'll be rid of them in a day or so," she said, reverting to her bad habit of talking aloud to herself, then she saw her trunk which Keir had told her would be sent up from the station. Someone had unpacked it, which was a silly thing to do in view of the fact that she would be leaving so soon, but as she observed how her familiar possessions had been arranged about the room with some attempt to give it an air of permanency, she felt a little shiver run down her spine. Was this Pendragon's intimation that he always got what he wanted, and could he, in fact, force her to stay as, perhaps, he had forced Keverne into marriage, and Doone to a sick couch?

  "Rubbish!" she exclaimed loudly, and jumped when Emma came into the room without knocking.

  "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, hesitating on the threshold, "I didn't know you were here. I came in to see to the fire."

  "Did you unpack my things?" asked Alice.

  "Yes. I didn't put everything away because I thought you'd like to arrange things for yourself."

  "There was nothing I needed out of my trunk for just another night or two," Alice said pointedly.

  "But you'll be staying now, won't you?" Emma replied. "Doone has taken such a fancy to you. If you knew what a time we've had with the other—er-"

  "Zombies?" Alice prompted and Emma smiled apologetically.

  "My husband shouldn't have started that nonsense," she said. "I'm afraid it's become a household joke with all of us. But you'll give us a trial, Miss Brown, won't you? It— it would mean a great deal to me—having another woman here, I mean."

  There was a shy appeal in her mild blue eyes and Alice answered gently:

  "The decision is your half-brother's as much as mine, surely."

  "Pendragon will agree once he's sure that Doone isn't indulging in one of her passing fancies."

  "And how can any of you be sure of that?"

  "Perhaps I can, more than the others. I've never known her allow anyone to speak to her as you have. It's because you don't seem much more than a child yourself, I expect,

  and that's what she's needed. Pendragon at least agrees with me on that point, now."

  "I don't know," said Alice, and wanted suddenly to ask all those questions which reticence and good manners forbade, but Emma, with one of her rare flashes of insight, said placidly:

  "We are not nearly as strange as we must seem to you. Doone imagines—or invents—a great many things you know."

  "Does she?" said Alice, relieved, but even as she accepted the other woman's assurance, she was aware of a nagging little doubt at the back of her mind.

  "Supper is at half-past seven. We don't have late dinner at Polrame; the daily women go at six," Emma said and went away.

  Alice brushed out her hair, staring curiously at her reflection in the mirror. Did she look such a child, she wondered, and remembered Aunt Brown saying not so long before she died: "You're not exactly pretty, my dear, but you have small bones and those odd, enquiring green eyes. You may have a certain charm for some men—the protective kind. I hope you'll meet one of them," and she had sighed regretfully.

  She went downstairs wondering where the household assembled before supper, but there seemed to be no one about. Only the two greyhounds moved their tails lazily in greeting, then resumed their slumbers in front of the fire which blazed in the cavernous open hearth, and Alice joined them to warm her cold hands while she waited. Her gaze explored curiosly the details of her surroundings which, last night, had merely been blurred impressions, and as she looked her eyes grew wider and wider. Armour and trophies reached almost to the high-domed roof; gigantic presses and armoires filled the shadows and over the great slab of granite which formed the chimney piece, the Pendragon coat-of-arms was carved in the stone just as it had been at the inn.

  "It's like a film set!" she exclaimed aloud, and jumped when Keir's voice answered from the shadows:

  "Yes, it is, rather, isn't it?"

  He moved into the circle of firelight, tall and lean, the dancing flames making strange shadows on his dark, bony

  face. He stood there, his hands in his pockets, looking down at her, his head thrust forward so that his scrutiny became intensely personal. Alice fidgeted nervously and one of the dogs got up to lick his hand, then, finding no response, lay down again.

  "Polrame is a new experience for you, I imagine," he said, and there was a hint of mockery in his voice. "All this—that you were observing with such saucer-like eyes— is the haphaza
rd accumulation of generations, but we like our odd museum pieces—junk for the most part, but quite effective, don't you think?"

  "How many generations?" she asked practically because she refused to be impressed, and he laughed.

  "Not many, if the truth were told," he said. "My great-great-grandfather built this house at a time when the tinners were making their last bid for supremacy in Cornish affairs."

  "The tinners?" She remembered he had mentioned such people last night on their way to the kitchen.

  "They were the men from the mines, who descended in bands to plunder a wreck which the fishermen had saved. In those days the tinners had their own courts and parliament and more or less ruled themselves—a lawless lot from all one's told.

  "And were there Pendragons among the tinners?" she asked and caught the sudden glint of amusement in his eyes.

  "Very likely," he replied. "The Pendragon mine was very profitable in those days. The owners of the mines naturally dissociated themselves from the riff-raff who worked for them, but smuggling, of course, was another matter and considered respectable."

  "Four and twenty ponies, trotting through the dark . . ." Alice murmured, her fancy caught as it had been when Keverne had talked of the Pendragons, but Keir's smile was a little ironic.

  "Then remember the rest of that poem, Miss Alice Brown," he said. "Watch the wall, my darling, till thegentlemen go by . . ."

  "Are you trying to warn me?" she asked, thinking that the conservation was only part of the strangeness of the last twenty-four hours.

  "Perhaps," he replied, prodding one of the greyhounds with a gentle foot. "But there's no need of that, is there? You'll be leaving us very soon."

  She was silent, aware that, perversely, she would have liked him to ask her to stay. It was almost as if he had thrown out a challenge, knowing that she was too immature and too alien to his ways to accept.

  She turned to the coat-of-arms over the fireplace, spelling out the Latin motto again.

  "What does it mean?" she asked.

  "Captum Teneo? Roughly translated, it means I take, I hold. Another warning, perhaps, Miss Brown?"

  She turned to look up at him and this time the challenge in his eyes was unmistakable.

  "You're very free with your warnings, Mr. Pendragon," she said. "Do all the Pendragons abide by your motto?"

  "Oh, yes," he replied and there was a little quirk of amusement at the corners of his mouth. "So you better take heed before you decide."

  "Decide what?"

  "Whatever it is you have in mind. You are a nice, well-brought-up little girl, Alice Brown, and no match, I would say, for our rough Cornish humours."

  "Why do you like to jeer at me?" she demanded, begin-ing to feel ruffled. "Do you suppose I've no opinions of my own?"

  "On the contrary, as my sister-in-law pointed out, you answer back. Rather surprising when one looks at you." "Then why-"

  Alice's question was cut short by the arrival of Keverne and the brother she had not yet met, and both began to argue with Keir on some matter relating to the mine, completely ignoring her. Their voices rose and fell, echoing round the hall and the dogs got up and began to bark. Presently Emma appeared to say supper was ready and, still arguing, they sat themselves down at the long table.

  Emma, as usual, paid little heed to the conversation and Alice, perforce, was obliged to follow suit. The Pendragon men, she thought ruefully, were doubtless accustomed to giving scant attention to their womenfolk; but even as the conclusion formed in her mind, Keir made an abrupt end to the discussion and turned his attention to his guest.

  He could, she discovered with surprise, make excellent small talk when he choose and when Keverne joined in with some provocative comment, turned the subject neatly, putting his half-brother in his place. Merryn Pendragon contributed little to the conversation once the point he had been arguing was dismissed. Like Emma, he ate his food in silence for the most part, looking a little sulky, and Alice soon discovered that Keverne used him as a butt for the impertinences which he could not quite bring off with Keir,

  "Have you decided to stay with us, Alice Brown?" Keverne asked as the meal drew to a finish. "I hear my sister demands to have you for the latest Zombie."

  "Such a silly description," murmured his wife, but he only grinned across the table at Alice and added:

  "You looked rather like one last night, drowned and scared, with eyes like saucers. Well, are you staying?"

  But Keverne, for all his boldness, could not disconcert her in the same way as Pendragon, she found, and she answered sedately enough:

  "The decision is not entirely mine."

  "Hasn't Pendragon asked you, yet? Doone can generally get round him, if nobody else can."

  "Mr. Pendragon told me to watch the wall," Alice replied demurely and saw Keir's brief smile, but Keverne frowned, not caring for jests in which he had no part.

  "Double-talk!" he said a little crossly. "What are you playing at, Pendragon? She may not be your cup of tea as regards a duenna, but look at the dance the others led us, and at least Doone likes her."

  "I think Miss Brown must find it a little embarrassing to be discussed as if she had been put up in the slave market," Keir replied quite pleasantly.

  Keverne said, with a wink at Alice: "Well, she's for hire, isn't she?" Whereupon his half-brother brought down a clenched fist on the table which made them all jump.

  "That's enough!" he said with ice in his voice. "What you choose to call your wit has been largely responsible for the short-lived stay of some of my other employees, I don't doubt. Now shut up or leave the table."

  An ugly gleam came into Keverne's black eyes.

  "I'm not a child to be ordered from the room," he said sulkily.

  "You frequently behave like one," Keir retorted and pushed back his chair. "If you would care to come with me to less quarrelsome surroundings, Miss Brown, I will try to show you a little of the courtesy which seems to have been lacking since your arrival."

  But Alice had experienced enough of Pendragon vagaries for one day. She thanked him politely, but replied that she would prefer to remain and help Emma clear the table.

  "As you like," he said indifferently, and went out of the room.

  "Why can't you stop riding him?" demanded Merryn when the door had closed. "You always get the worst of it."

  "It's he who does the riding, as anyone with half an eye can see," retorted Keverne angrily. "If you stood up to him yourself you'd soon find out."

  "I've got more sense," his brother said, and Emma began sweeping their plates from them regardless of whether they had finished or not.

  "Pendragon likes to give his own orders," she observed calmly. "Don't forget, Keverne, that he supplies our board and lodging as well as our bread and butter."

  He looked surprised, as if he was unused to hearing his wife voice such a definite opinion, and Merryn remarked moodily:

  "She's right, you know". If you and I had any real guts we would have got out on our own long ago."

  "Speak for yourself when it comes to a matter of guts," his brother retorted unpleasantly. "I've got enough for the two of us — you and your pretty little fish!"

  "Guts and bravado aren't necessarily the same thing," Emma murmured as though to herself, then she sent Alice a quick, veiled look from under her lashes as though she remembered too late that it was ill-mannered to air their family grievances in front of a stranger.

  "If you really want to help, Miss Brown, perhaps you would carry this tray to the kitchen for me," she said and waited at the head of the passage for Alice to follow her.

  They made several journeys back and forth down the cold, flagged passage, stacking the dirty dishes in the scullery for the daily women to wash in the morning.

  Once, Emma remarked quite suddenly:

  "We aren't really as quarrelsome as we sound, though I can understand yon can't have found the prospect of living among us very attractive. Where will you go when you leave here?"

/>   Her quiet acceptance of the fact that her own private battle was already lost touched Alice with a sudden sense of her own insecurity. Where, indeed, would she go and who would employ her?

  "My earning capacity is so small. I wasn't properly trained for anything," she replied, following her own train of thought. "Girls shouldn't be brought up these days to wait for a husband and nothing else."

  "No," said Emma. "You take the first man that comes along, then."

  "Is that what you did?" Alice asked shyly, because now the question no longer seemed impertinent. She had, in some unexplained fashion, established a nebulous contact with Emma.

  "Yes, that's what I did. Merryn was right, you know. He and Keverne should have got out. They don't really care about the mine. The quarry, of course, is what keeps us these days — in metal ore and granite — but the mine was part of Pendragon history and, although it yields little tin, now, its importance hasn't been forgotten by Pendragon. You can't expect the younger ones to support his adherense to a dying industry, I suppose."

  "Has your half-brother some hold over them, then?"

  "Only the purse-strings, and that's of their own choosing. Pendragon puts up with a great deal, actually. He had to bring them all up after his father died."

  "But he is Pendragon."

  "Yes, he's Pendragon, but the title wouldn't have sat well on either of the others, you know."

  "You're fond of him, I think," Alice said gently, and remembered that Keir always spoke to her with courtesy.

  "I don't understand him," Emma replied obliquely. "Perhaps he isn't an easy man to know, but he's had his own disappointments, and he's worth ten of the other two for all his chilly ways."

  It was a curious admission, Alice thought, for it was plain by the way she sometimes looked at her husband that she was not indifferent to him.

  "How did the little girl get rheumatic fever so badly?" Alice asked, and felt the other woman's withdrawal.

  "It was the result of an accident. You had better ask Pendragon," she said dully.

  "Oh," Alice was disconcerted, remembering the child's earlier insinuations. "You're a strange family," she said, and Emma, who had been heating up food at the stove for the baby, turned to smile at her with faint apology.