by Sara Seale
"Och, yes!" he said. "She must take things easy for a while yet, you understand, but there's no need for the wheel-chair Pendragon insists on, or for the waiting on hand and foot which Emma, poor woman, has had to put up with. Follow your own insticts, Miss Brown — I don't doubt you'll be good for all of them."
Alice scarcely thought that the adult Pendragons would benefit by her presence at Polrame, but she liked the bluff little doctor and was glad to think that he was on her side.
Doone, though difficult and unpredictable in many ways, was not hard to handle and the fancy she had taken for Alice out of pure perversity did not pass. Indeed, as the days went by, a genuine affection sprang up between the pair of them. They frequently called one another names, but afterwards, would kiss and make friends for all the world, thought Alice in surprise, as if they were both the same age.
Keir sometimes watched them with an unexpected twinkle in his hard, observant eyes, and then Alice would feel a little foolish and wonder if she was taking the handsome salary he paid her under false pretences. He never failed to visit Doone's room as soon as he returned
from the mine, but it was Keverne, coming only when he thought of it, for whom the child's face lit up. It would, of course, seem an impertinence to feel sorry for Pendragon, but Alice sometimes wondered how much he minded his half-sister's barely concealed distaste for him.
"Is she afraid of you?" she asked him once, and the slanting eyebrows met in a line of displeasure.
"Perhaps," he said obliquely, "it's not a bad thing if she is. Doone could grow up to be impossible, you know."
Alice thought, privately, that they were all, in their different ways, inclined to be impossible, but she only said gently:
"But fear doesn't beget confidence, and confidence to a child is very important."
"Children, like adults, can place confiidence in the wrong people," he said, and added with unexpected suddenness: "Are you afraid of me, Alice Brown?"
She was disconcerted by his abrupt switch to personalities. He had not, until now, shown any concern for her private feelings.
"I'm not sure." she answered carefully and his smile was a little mocking. "I — I think they are all a little afraid of you."
"Do you, indeed? Am I such an ogre?" "I don't know. I hardly know you at all, Mr. Pendragon."
"That's true, of course," he answered gravely. "You don't know any of us, do you?" "A week is not very long, is it?"
"Sometimes it can be a lifetime," he answered sombrely. "Does Keverne ever trouble you?"
She was surprised by his sudden question. Keverne liked to tease, not always kindly, but she thought he had made it clear from the start that he found her uninteresting as a woman.
"I don't see much of your half-brother, Mr. Pendragon," she replied precisely. "Mr. Pendragon is often out, and the other Mr. Pendragon doesn't notice me. Mrs. Pendragon says Mr. Pendragon — oh, dear, it is confusing! There ase so many of you," she finished, forgetting her formality, and he laughed.
"You'd better take to our Christian names. We all use yours," he said carelessly and she looked a little shocked. "But that's different." "Why? Do you feel inferior?" "Certainly not!"
"Not a true Zombie, evidently! Well, forget your confusion of dragons and disenchant us by using our first names."
"Do you need disenchanting?"
"Perhaps. You may be the one appointed — who knows?"
He had spoken with a certain sardonic lightness, but she blinked up at him, unsure of his mood.
"And what shall I call you?" she asked, and he turned away, as if he was tired of the discussion.
"You may call me Pendragon, like the rest of them," he said, and there was dismissal and a hint of the old arrogance in the straightening of his long back.
She avoided addressing him by name, after that, but, eventually, it became habit to use his title, if title it was. There could, she thought, be no familiarity in employing the name by which he was known to his family and employees alike.
She was scrupulous in observing his injunction to account to him and to no one else, and, although she often felt foolish to trouble him with trivial matters, he would listen to her gravely, grant or withold permission as the case might be, and ask penetrating questions which sometimes involved the other members of his household which taught Alice early to put a guard on her replies.
But with Doone she was not so guarded.
"The Dragon says you are to get out more," she announced, without thinking, after one of Doone's refusals to be wheeled in her chair about the grounds.
"The Dragon?" the child exclaimed, immediately diverted. "Is that what you call Pendragon?"
"Not to his face," said Alice, flushing. "And I shouldn't have said that, Doone — forget it."
"But, of course, that's what he is — a dragon!" she shouted. "How clever of you, Alice! Has he put a spell on you, too?"
"Of course not," Alice replied, annoyed with herself
for having seemed to side against Pendragon. "And he hasn't put any spell on you, either. He's a lot more considerate than your brother, Keverne."
"Keverne is different — Keverne's my own," Doone said with her usual partisanship. "Pendragon's considerate only because — because he-"
"Because he what?" asked Alice severely, and the child's bright gaze slid away from hers.
"Oh, never mind," she said. "Keverne could tell you. Keverne could tell you lots of things. Why don't you ask him?"
But Alice had become used to Doone's innuendos. Keverne would tell her a great many things which she might not wish to hear; he had, thought, sagely, his sister's gift for exaggeration and disregard for the feelings of others.
When the weather was kind, she wheeled Doone round the house and down the winding paths which, flanked by shrubberies, intersected the sloping lawns which were fouled by the droppings of the gulls that perpetually screamed overhead. It was a bleak, colorless garden, she thought, viewing its wasted dimensions with disappointed eyes, but when the rhododendrons were in bloom, Doone said, the place was a riot of color, the giant blooms growing so high that they made dark tunnels of the paths.
"Are there no flowers?" Alice asked, thinking of Aunt Brown's tiny, lovingly stocked garden.
"Flowers don't do well here, we're too exposed," Doone replied disinterestedly. "Look, Alice! You can see by the way the trees lean which way the gales blow in. If you pick a blade of grass you can taste the salt on it. In the great storms we've even had seaweed thrown up on the lawns, and shells and little bouders. I love the storms."
Alice looked down on the black curls, blowing in the wind, and smiled, her imagination reaching out to a life she had never known herself. They were, she thought, children of the storm, these Pendragons, and her head would ache for Doone when, the chair abandoned, they would walk for a time and she watched the child's apathetic progress across the grass where once she must have raced and tumbled. Often Doone would make excuses to
stop and then she would say, with all Keverne's pride and braggadocio:
"Let's stop and admire Polrame. Don't you think we have a fine home? Don't you think it's a fine house, Alice?"
Many times Alice would halt to gaze upon the grey, sprawling building, to please the child. She knew nothing about architecture, but she did not think it was beautiful, with its corbelled turrets and bleak facade. The heavy Ionic portico, though impressive, was, she suspected, out of character, and she wondered whether Pendragon's great-great-grandfather had designed the place himself. She always acquiesced with Doone, however, that Polrame was a fine house, and was disconcerted when the child sometimes saw through her pretence.
"You don't think it's fine at all," Doone would say then, her dark face growing sullen. "You prefer those horrid little houses in rows with window boxes and lace curtains, like all the other Zombies."
But Alice, unused to asserting her authority in a grownup manner, would merely reply seriously:
"I've never known that kind of house. Aunt Brown's was small bec
ause she couldn't afford anything bigger, but it was pretty and had a garden with a little stream running through it. I used to catch minnows in it when I was small."
"Minnows! In these parts we go for sharks," scoffed Doone, determined to show her superiority, but she was easily diverted by tales of Aunt Brown. Perhaps, thought Alice, she was fascinated by the kind of life she had never known, herself, just as Alice, in reverse, was intrigued by her present surroundings. They would exchange reminiscences like a couple of old cronies, and soon Doone knew a surprising amount about Aunt Brown and her gentle ways, and even the dreary hostel, and the office manager who did not sound at all nice.
"Was he like a dragon, like Pendragon?" Doone asked with interest and Alice replied firmly:
"Not like Pendragon at all. He wasn't even a dragon— nothing so exciting."
"Do you find Pendragon exciting, then? Now, Keverne I can understand. All the girls find Keverne exciting," said Doone and Alice replied a little sharply:
"We were talking of dragons, not people."
"Oh, yes, we were," said Doone with a child's refusal to be side-tracked. "You were talking about the man in your office and then we compared him with Pendragon."
" You compared him with Pendragon," Alice retorted with an insistence on accuracy equal to Doone's, and the child suddenly grinned at her.
"The Zombies never argued," she said gleefully. "They said: 'That's enough, Doone', or 'Don't be cheeky, Doone', when they were getting the worst of it."
"But I wasn't getting the worst of it," Alice said mildly. She was, like Doone, prepared to carry on the argument indefinitely; such exchanges were stimulating, she found, even though they might only involve bickering with a child of twelve.
"Yes, you were!"
"No, I wasn't!"
"Really!" observed Pendragon's voice behind them on this occasion. "You sound like a couple of schoolgirls! Is this how you exercise authority over my headstrong half-sister?"
He stood there looking at them, his eyebrows lifted in two little quirks of rather grim enquiry. The dragon's heads in his coat-of-arms, thought Alice foolishly, had just that look, with what she supposed were their eyebrows twirling into a little horn at each corner.
"Are you expecting to see smoke come out of my nostrils, Alice?" he enquired with an aptness that made her jump.
"Why should you ask that?" she countered feebly, and he shrugged and turned to resume his stroll.
"An obvious association of ideas, I suppose; don't look so guilty," he replied carelessly and walked away.
"You see!" hissed Doone, her eyes very bright. "He knows what you're thinking. No one's safe from Pendragon, Alice—not even you."
She turned too quickly in her desire to dramatize the situation, and her foot caught on a molehill which brought her down.
Alice was on her knees in the wet grass as the child cried out, but almost as quickly Pendragon was beside her. He gathered the little girl to him and, for a moment, she clung to him as if glad of the comfort of his arms.
"Are you hurt, Doone?" he asked, seeing her tears. They were, Alice suspected, tears of humiliation rather than pain, and Pendragon evidently shared her view for, when Doone promptly replied that she was hurt badly, he said with grave authority:
"Speak the truth, Doone. Are you in pain?"
"No," the child said sulkily and her tears stopped.
"Rage—mortification, perhaps? I know, my dear," he said with sudden tenderness and picked her up in his arms. "I'll carry you back to the house, and Alice shall bring the chair."
Alice followed them, pushing the chair along the dark paths of the shrubberies. Doone lay passively in his arms, neither yielding nor resisting. He made no fuss of her, but Alice observed the ease with which he carried her and knew a surprised moment of pity for him that of all Doone's brothers, Pendragon was the one who really cared.
He settled her on the sofa in her own room while Alice made up the fire, and suggested that they should both have tea with her. Alice waited, apprehensively, for the child to make her usual ungracious reply but, perhaps because Doone, too, had gathered something of his concern for her, she merely said that she would like that.
As the room darkened with the fading light of the February evening, she watched Pendragon's face in the gathering twilight. A strange man, she thought, and not easy to understand, as Emma had intimated. Did they none of them realize that his responsibilities might be different from theirs, she wondered; were they none of them grateful to the source from which their well-being and their income sprang?
"You're looking thoughtful, Alice," he said, and she became aware that his eyes had been upon her for a little while. "Are you measuring us all up and finding us wanting?"
"No—no, of course not," she replied uncomfortably. "After all, I'm only employed here."
"True," he answered, "but that shouldn't restrict your opinions. How do you find the Pendragons?"
"It's not fair to ask me," she said uneasily, and Doone, with a return to her old aggressiveness, said:
"She likes Keverne, don't you, Alice? All the girls like Keverne."
He frowned, and from that moment the pleasant atmosphere which had fallen upon all three of them seemed to disperse.
"Well, "Well, I'm glad she likes one of us," he said and, in the dim light, Alice could not determine whether mockery or regret was written in his dark face, but she sensed his withdrawal from the brief intimacy which had bound them together, and felt impatient with Doone who could, so wilfully, destroy a moment of tenderness.
"I don't," she said to Doone with unwonted asperity, "like your brother any more than the rest of your family. You should learn to discriminate, Doone."
"Discriminate—what's that mean?"
"Sort things out—not ascribing to others the things you feel yourself," Alice replied and knew she sounded prim.
"Very commendable," Keir said dryly, and she knew he was laughing at her. "But Keverne's always been the golden idol, hasn't he, Doone?"
"Of course."
"Of course. So you see, Alice Brown, I'm at a disadvantage—but don't let it trouble you."
He was about to rise when Keverne burst into the room, and, at his coming, the child's entire demeanour altered.
"Keverne!" she cried, holding out her arms, and he bent and gave her a hasty kiss.
"Hullo, sweetheart!" he said carelessly, then turned to his half-brother. "Pendragon, that machinery's still jammed. Why weren't you there to give orders?"
II
Keir looked at him with a curious expression.
"I'd already given them," he replied. "You and Merryn between you were perfectly capable of seeing they were carried out."
"You know very well the men listen to you where they won't to us. Don't you realize that this means a setback of hours, perhaps days—and the men none too ready to pull their weight, anyway?"
"Oh, yes, probably better than you do, but it's time you took some of the responsibility yourself, don't you think?"
"You're the boss," drawled Keverne, sticking out his chin. "We're only your hired workers, like all the rest."
"Don't be ridiculous!" Pendragon snapped. "If you've still got that chip on your shoulder, Keverne, why don't you clear out?"
"Would you buy me out, and Merryn, too?"
"You know I'm not in a position to do that. You both draw your dividends from the mine and get a salary on top of that. What are you grousing about?"
Alice sat listening to them, and even Doone was silent. They had, Alice knew, completely forgotten they were not alone or, perhaps, it was merely the Pendragon habit to ignore their company when personal issues arose.
Keverne shrugged and thrust his hands in his pockets.
"What standing have we with the men?" he asked sulkily. "They're none too co-operative as it is with this Bolshie element about."
"You bear the same name which has been respected for generations in these parts," Keir answered.
"But you are Pendragon,
just as our father was, and his father before him, and as far back as the time of Uther Pendragon, sire of King Arthur—if he really existed."
"Is it my fault I happen to be the first-born and had a different mother?" Keir demanded unreasonably, and Keverne laughed unpleasantly.
"Just the luck of the draw, I suppose you would say," he sneered. "An easy way out, Pendragon, but your employees aren't with us heart and soul, as they were in the old days."
"Keverne and Merryn and I—we're the real family. You, Pendragon, are One and One and all Alone, like the rhyme," shouted Doone suddenly and shrilly.
"Shut up!" snapped Keverne savagely, and Keir, as if realizing for the first time that they were not alone, observed with visible restraint:
"I hardly think this is the time or place for a wrangle of this kind, Keverne. If you want to pursue it, come to my study."
They stood, the two tall Pendragons, facing each other in hostile silence in the gathering darkness, and Doone began to cry.
"I'm not well," she sobbed. "I fell in the garden today and it hurts. Keverne—it hurts."
Her brother made an impatient movement and did not answer, but Keir bent over her for a moment, before turning to leave the room.
"You told me you hadn't hurt yourself. Wasn't that true?" he asked her gravely, but she pushed away his caressing hand.
"I don't know ... go away . . . leave me with Keverne . . ." she sniffed, but her brother had already slammed out of the room, and Keir, starting slowly to follow him, caught Alice's great, green eyes fixed owlishly on his face.
"I'm sorry, my dear," he said wearily. "You will have to get used to these sudden squalls, I'm afraid. Can you manage, do you think? We will have upset Doone all over again, I regret to say."
"Yes, I can manage," Alice replied, and her hands which had been clasped tightly behind her back felt a little damp. She watched him go from the room and imagined she saw a suggestion of defeat in the lines of his long, lean back.
"What is this business of the mine?" she asked, because she could no longer control her curiosity, and sat down on the side of Doone's sofa to listen.
Doone settled herself against her cushions and prepared to enjoy herself. There was nothing she liked better than to enlarge on her family history and Alice seldom gave her an opening.