Dear Dragon

by Sara Seale

  "I've told you before—only I don't expect you were listening," she began with the superior air she liked to adopt with Alice if given the opportunity. "The mine has always gone to the eldest son—it's a sort of heritage. Of course the quarry really is the most important now because Keverne says the mines yield very little tin these days, but we still call it all the mine. Well, when my father married my mother that made a second family, so we all got shares, too, but Pendragon was Pendragon and the

  biggest share was his, and he is the owner and has the last say in everything and of course you can see, Alice, it isn't fair at all."

  "Why not?" said Alice. "If the eldest son has always inherited it's perfectly fair."

  "You aren't being sympathetic," Doone said crossly. "Keverne has rights—even Merryn."

  "But not in the mine, it would seem. There was no reason why they should have stopped on and worked for Pendragon."

  "Polarme was our home. Why should he turn us out?"

  "Has he ever tried to?"

  "N-no."

  "Then one can only presume that your brothers made a willing bargain."

  Doone looked puzzled for a moment and Alice suspected that she had for so long built up this little drama about Polrame and the mine and her half-brother that she no longer had a clear picture. Pendragon, it would appear, had been father and mother to them besides providing them with a livelihood.

  "If Keverne had married Trelawny," Doone said with narrowed eyes, "their joint share would have been bigger than Pendragon's, so Pendragon made him marry Emma."

  Alice moved impatiently, remembering the garbled story which she had heard and rejected that first day.

  "We've been through all that before, and I told you then that you shouldn't pay attention to servants' gossip," she said disapprovingly. "People can't be forced to marry these days."

  "Can't they? Well, Keverne didn't particularly want to marry Emma, though she was mad about him, of course. He wanted Trelawny and Trelawny wanted Pendragon and the mine, because when her father died she would hold equal shares and that would give her the same rights as Pendragon."

  "What happened to Trelawny, then? She doesn't sound very nice," said Alice, wondering how much of this story to believe.

  "She went away," said Doone vaguely. "Then her father died. She'll come back one day, I expect, and then—then Pendragon will marry her, I shouldn't wonder."

  "Was he in love with her?" Alice asked, because she was still young enough to believe that this could be the only reason for marriage, and felt a little shocked when Doone replied:

  "I don't think so—Pendragon wouldn't love anyone— he doesn't need anyone—but it would be a good thing if they married, wouldn't it, because then Pendragon could buy Keverne out. The baby can't inherit, you see, so there's no point in hanging on to the mine."

  She yawned, suddenly tired after the scenes and incidents of the afternoon, and Alice jumped up to draw the curtains, a little ashamed that she had pried so blatantly into affairs which did not concern her.

  "An early bed for you after that tumble," she said, trying to sound prosaic, and Doone yawned again, disappointed that confidences were at an end.

  Long after she was, herself, in bed, she remembered Doone saying with finality: Pendragon would never love anyone . . . he doesn't need anyone . . . No, thought Alice, turning over in her bed uneasily, he probably never would. He was the dragon of Polrame, with smoke coming out of his nostrils and eyebrows which twirled into horns . . . larger than life, thought Alice, and fell asleep.

  As the days went on and the rhythm of the household became familiar, Alice found herself growing quite attached to her gloomy tapestry room. Its proportions dwindled on closer acquaintance, and even the tapestry ceased to alarm with its writhing dragons and faded motto in Welish repeating itself all round the room. As she climbed into bed each night, Alice found that, like Doone, she had fallen into the habit of dramatizing her situation; sometimes she was the Princess who could not sleep because of the plea placed under her many mattresses, sometimes the King of Persia's daughter kept locked in a secret room until the Prince should come and claim her, and sometimes it was Prince Lindworm himself who stood beside her bed in all his fearsome scales, saying: Fair maiden, shed a shift . . . That story had fascinated and frightened her as a child, and now, at night, with the wind howling round the house, she confused the Lindworm with Pendragon who looked, she remembered, rather like the

  strange pictures in the old book of fairytales which had belonged to Aunt Brown in her youth.

  "How you do stare with those great green eyes," Pendragon remarked once as they sat alone together in the day-room after the supper things had been cleared away. "Do you find my face peculiar in any way?"

  He did not disconcert her so much with his observations now, but she flushed, conscious that she must have appeared rude.

  "I'm sorry," she said, adding foolishly, because the thought was still uppermost in her mind: "You reminded me of the Lindworm."

  "And who, pray, was that gentleman? He hardly sounds attractive," Keir said, laying the book he had been reading face downwards on his knee.

  "He couldn't help it—he was enchanted," she said earnestly, and immediately felt more foolish than ever.

  "Oh, I see, a fairy tale," he said, and settled back in his chair, apparently ready to make conversation with her. "Tell me, Alice, do you find us all so strange?"

  "No," she said, "not now—at least-"

  "There are reservations, I see. Do you realize you have been here three weeks?"

  "Have I?" she said, sounding surprised. "It seems longer."

  "Am I to take that to mean that you find your job irksome?"

  "Oh, no! It's just—well, I suppose my life was so different before, that this still seems rather like a dream."

  "And yet I would have said you are quite a down-to-earth young person," he observed. "Do you have your fancies, too, like Doone?"

  "They are different, that's all," she replied, wondering if he had already forgotten his own imaginings of adolescence. "Didn't you-"

  "When I was your age, Alice, I was already working in the mine," he said with sudden harshness. "There wasn't much time for day-dreaming."

  "No, I suppose not," she said, wondering how old he was now. She knew that Keverne and his brother were twenty-seven and twenty-five respectively, and that Emma was four years older than her husband, but no one had

  enlightened her about Pendragon. He said with that occasional trick he had of supplying the answer to an unspoken question:

  "I'm thirty-seven—quite a formidable gap to bridge from your nineteen, isn't it?"

  "I don't think so," she replied with grave consideration. "Age is very unimportant, really, don't you think?"

  He looked surprised.

  "It would depend, I suppose," he said thoughtfully, and absently studied her now familiar face in the lamplight. She had an odd quality of timelessness, he noticed suddenly. He had come to bracket her in his mind with Doone, listening to their meaningless squabbles, but he realized now that there could be more than he had suspected behind the polite, sometimes diffident exterior she usually showed him. The high, child-like forehead and the hair escaping artlessly from that absurd Alice-band were misleading, as were the clear, enquiring eyes, so direct, so very green.

  "Now it's you who's staring," she said, moving uneasily, and he smiled.

  "I'm sorry. I think I was seeing you for the first time," he said and she looked startled, then lowered her lashes and he saw the two little shadowy crescents they made on her cheeks.

  "One doesn't observe the people one employs very much, I imagine," she said, and he re-crossed one long leg impatiently over the other, knocking his book to the floor.

  "What a devastating indictment!" he exclaimed. "Tell me, why do you wear that ridiculous piece of ribbon round your head?"

  "Don't you like it?" she asked nervously, and snatched the ribbon off, letting the soft fair hair fall forward ov
er her face like a silkly curtain. "That's what happens, you see. My hair, being straight, will never stay put by itself."

  "No, don't do that," he said quickly as she began to thread the ribbon back into place, and she sat there looking at him, twisting the piece of silk round her fingers, confused by this unusual plunge into personalities. For the first time she found herself wondering what he might be

  like as a lover, he who Doone said would never love anyone, and before she could stop herself she asked:

  "Who was Trelawny? Why did she go away?"

  In a moment his face had altered and he became Pendragon again, a man with whom it was unwise to take liberties.

  "Who's been talking to you about Trelawny?" he said, with a tightening of the lips.

  "Only Doone. She—I didn't mean to trespass, Pendragon," she replied and his eyes dwelt on her for a moment with chill appraisal.

  "Why should you be trespassing?" he said. "Trelawny is a cousin of ours, and she went away because she wanted to see the world, I imagine. What has Doone been telling you?"

  "Nothing," said Alice quickly and saw his eyebrows lift into their two little suggestive quirks at the corners.

  "Nothing?" he repeated on a sceptical note. "Well, our family affairs don't concern you, Alice, do they, whatever fantastic notions Doone may have?"

  "No," she said, feeling snubbed. "I—I didn't mean to pry, Pendragon."

  "I'm sure you didn't," he replied suavely. "Well— you've another week, my dear. Have you decided yet what to make of us?"

  She sat up straight on the edge of her chair, blinking at him in the lamplight. She was aware, only too painfully, that by an unconsidered question, she had broken that fleeting intimacy between them, and she could not, for the moment, follow his trend of thought.

  "Another week?" she repeated blankly, wondering whether, true to Pendragon tradition, he was about to throw her out.

  "You came for a month—remember?" he said, observing her confusion with a certain enjoyment. "According to the terms of our bargain ,1 wasn't to throw you out until the month was up, neither were you to walk out. I merely want to know your views—or should I wait another week?"

  A log fell in, releasing a vivid burst of flame which lit up the mako in its case above the mantelpiece. Alice stared up at the shark. She remembered that Keverne had told her that in death the fish faded to a dirty grey, but in

  the firelight it appeared as it must have done in life, with its snowy belly and the deep blue tinge to its back and sides. She could see its beauty, now, even though she was still repelled.

  "Alice!" Keir said, with a sudden change of inflection. "Did you hear me? You really have the most extraordinary habit of becoming diverted from the point at issue."

  "Have I?" she answered, dragging her eyes away from the shark. "I—I didn't understand you wanted an ultimatum, Pendragon. Do you want me to go?"

  "My dear child!" he exclaimed, sounding exasperated. "Of course I don't want you to go! It was you, I thought, who needed this month in order to see if you could stand us all."

  "Then you want me to stay?"

  "Naturally. Doone likes you, which is more than can be said for the others, and you seem to have made progress with her. Mackinnon thinks you're an excellent influence. Do you want more money?"

  His final question was rapped out so arrogantly that she felt herself coloring under his eyes.

  "You pay me very generously, Pendragon, but I have a week to go, yet. Wouldn't it be better if we left it until my time is up?" she said, and spoke with that odd mixture of dignity and youthfulness which had amused him before.

  "As you like," he said courteously. "You're a surprising mixture, Alice Brown."

  "Ah I?" she asked uncertainly.

  "Yes, you are. Now, for heaven's sake, let me get back to my reading!" He picked up his book from the floor and was about to find his place again when she said politely:

  "It wasn't I who stopped you from reading, Pendragon. You accused me of staring and then began to stare, yourself. After that it was you who kept up the conversation."

  For a moment his heavy eyebrows met in their familiar uncompromising line, then he laughed.

  "All right. I'll give you the last word. You always were a good hand at answering back, Alice, weren't you?" he said, and proceeded to take no more notice of her for the rest of the evening.

  III

  It was the first week in March and the last of Alice's trial employment. Until Pendragon had reminded her, she had forgotten that she was only on trial. In that short space of time she had found her niche at Polrame. She had come to like Emma, and found an easy way to her approval through the baby, to whose needs she loved to attend when permitted, and even Merryn had allowed her to view his aquarium, and entrusted her with the mainten-tenance of the oil heater, should he be kept late at the mine.

  She loved the tropical fish best for their brilliant coloring and strange shapes, and never tired of watching them and enquiring their species. Sometimes she had the impression that Merryn was regarding her rather as she regarded the fish, with curiosity and a little awe. It was not until she had paid several visits to his room that she realized that no one before had taken any interest in his aquarium.

  "But why?" she asked, with genuine surprise. "I should have thought Doone would have been fascinated."

  "So she was when she was smaller, but she took to fishing them out of the tank when I wasn't there, so my room's been locked against her," he said.

  "And Pendragon?"

  He shrugged.

  "No one ever comes up here but me. I doubt if he'd

  be really interested, but you, Alice-" he suddenly

  sounded a little shy. "I trust you. You may come when you like. I will give you the other key."

  "I may not be here much longer," she said gently .

  "Won't you?" he answered vaguely. His attention had become wholly focused on one of the brilliant Flame Fish flashing across the front of the tank and she knew he had scarcely heard her.

  Now, in one short month, she had become lightly bound to them all; to Doone who needed her, to Emma's unspoken liking for her, to Merryn whose exotic fish somehow linked up with the dragons in her tapestry room; even to Pendragon himself who, presumably, had need

  of no one and would continue to employ her only so long as it suited him.

  "Would you mind if I went?" she asked the child, because for all Pendragon's previous assurance, she was still uncertain, but Doone's dark, lovely face became a sudden tragic mask that had nothing to do, this time, with her talent for histrionics.

  "But, you're not thinking of leaving!" she cried, winding her thin arms round Alice. "Is Pendragon throwing you out? If he is, I'll make such a scene that he'll never forget —I'll have palpitations and pains in my chest and—and he'll just be back where he started."

  "Be quiet, you stupid!" Alice replied, touched and a little surprised by the child's reaction. "He's not throwing me out, but at the end of the week I have to make my own decision. I only came on a month's trial, you know."

  "But do you want to go? Don't you like us—am I too tiresome—is it Pendragon?" The questions came pouring out in an impassioned stream and she began to breathe too quickly.

  "You musn't get so excited," Alice said, well aware that it took less than this to bring on an attack, whether real or imagined. "I'm here to look after you, so naturally your opinion is the one that really matters."

  "If you go I shall die!" cried Doone absurdly, but her nostrils looked pinched. "Are you sure Pendragon isn't throwing you out, Alice? It would be just like him to spite me because he knows I'm happy."

  "Doone, dear, you shouldn't talk like that," said Alice gently. "Pendragon has a great consideration for your happiness. In any case, he's already told me he would like me to stop on."

  "Then how can you hesitate?" Doone demanded with the sublime self-assurance of someone who has always been given in to.

  "I don't know," Alice replied, and added,
touched by a strange premonition which she did not, herself, understand: "Perhaps it would be better if I went now—before I can be hurt."

  "Why should you be hurt?" said Doone scornfully. "It's Pendragon, I know—I'll tell him what I think of him— I'll get Keverne on my side!"

  It was useless to argue now, Alice knew, trying to pacify the child, and she realized, too late, that she should have held her tongue until she had made her decision, that appealing to Doone, casually though she had meant it, had been, in a sense, a sop to her own uncertainty. It was, she supposed later, inevitable that a quarrel should be precipitated between the child and her half-brother, and inevitable, too, that for the first time since she had come to Polrame, Doone finished up with a genuine attack which brought Dr. Mackinnon out late that night.

  "Hadn't you more sense than to upset the child with a matter that lay entirely between you and myself?" Pendragon demanded furiously, when he finally called Alice to account. "It should have been obvious to you by now that my dealings with Doone can scarcely be described as easy. Are you out to make trouble for me because of some personal dislike?"

  They were in his study, a room which she seldom visited, and the fact that he was interviewing her there seemed to point to the assumption that he was about to dismiss her put of hand.

  "I can't do more than repeat I'm sorry," she answered wearily. "I saw at once that I should have held my tongue, but it was too late. I tried to explain that you had nothing to do with it directly, but she wouldn't listen."

  "Naurally she wouldn't listen," Keir said bitterly. "Doone seizes on the smallest opening to make me out an ogre, as I should have thought must have been plain to you as it is to the rest of the household. I thought more highly of you, Alice, but after all, you're only like all the others, feathering your own nest first. If you wanted more money, why didn't you say so when I asked you? I'd have been willing to pay, for Doone's sake."

  It was the first time that Alice had known his anger to be directed against herself, and she understood now how he had managed to keep his discontented household in check for so long. She did not resent a dressing-down which she felt she had merited, but the fact that he could think she was holding out for more money dismayed and shocked her.