Dear Dragon

by Sara Seale

  The two men left the room and Alice stood hesitating, while Emma began stacking the dishes.

  "Can I speak to you, later on, Pendragon?" she said at last and he gave her a swift, unpredictable look.

  "Naturally, if you wish. You can speak to me now, if it comes to that," he "replied, but she shook her head.

  "No later. Where shall I find you?" she said.

  "I'll be around." he said, and swore suddenly as the pressure from the knife he was awkwardly wielding found out the tender spot in his damaged hand.

  "Shall I cut up the meat for you?" Alice asked and jumped back a pace when he replied angrily:

  "No, I'm damned if you do! Sorry, Alice — I didn't mean to bite. I'm rather tired."

  "It hurts, doesn't it?"

  "Oh, yes, it hurts all right, but so do a lot of other things. Run away and amuse yourself somewhere. I hate being watched while I'm eating."

  Emma gave a little warning shake of the head and Alice slipped out of the room, leaving him irritably throwing scraps to the dogs which nuzzled round his chair. She went into the day-room to wait until Keir had finished his

  supper, but Keverne was already there, moodily flicking small pellets of paper at the mako.

  "Hullo!" he said. "Have you been having a strip torn off you, too?"

  "He's tired and his hand is probably giving him gyp," she said, going on her knees to pick up the bits of paper that were strewn about the floor.

  "More likely it was Trelawny who gave him hell," he laughed. "She can be a proper wild-cat when she's roused, can our dear cousin. I wonder if she'll get him in the end."

  "Does she want him?" asked Alice, who already knew the answer.

  "Oh, yes, she wants him. What you really wanted to ask was doesn't he want her, wasn't it, Alice-Blue-Gown?" he mocked with the familiar Pendragon habit of reading another's thoughts.

  "No," she answered, but knew that in some curious way it was.

  "You know," he continued, still with that mocking grin, "I told you once before that it would be a pity if you lost your heart in the wrong direction. It would be more of a pity, now, wouldn't it? Much better if you gave me a bit of a break!"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "Oh, yes, you do. But you're not Pendragon's cup of tea."

  "So you told me when we first met — only then I think you were alluding to yourself."

  He observed her, speculatively. He was clearly at a loose end and disgruntled with life, and for all his boldness, she knew a moment's pity for him.

  "I may have changed my tune," he drawled. "You have something, Alice-Blue-Gown, though I'm damned if I know what it is. Did you put on that dress for any special purpose?"

  The dress, as it happened, was blue, the blue gown he kept alluding to, and the soft folds of the skirt spread round her as she sat back on her heels, picking up gleams from the lamp as she moved. She did not answer him and he continued to look at her with that bold, black stare. The tight bodice of her frock was cut low over her slim young breasts, he noticed, but her face was still the face

  of a child lifted to his, the green eyes grave and questioning, the soft fair hair held back with a wide blue ribbon.

  Before she could reply, the door opened and Pendragon came into the room. He stood there for a moment surveying them both with a curious expression, and Alice began scrambling to her feet, losing, in her embarrassment, the unconscious grace of that fleeting glimpse.

  "Emma wants you upstairs," he said briefly to his half-brother, and Keverne moved indolently to the door, pulling a strand of Alice's hair in passing.

  "Don't forget the gipsy's warning," he said with a grin, and went out of the room, slamming the door.

  Keir crossed to the fireplace, and stood there, warming his back. He seemed in no hurry to speak to her, and Alice stood there like an awkward child caught out in some misdemeanor.

  "Well?" he said at last. "You wanted to see me, I think. Sit down, for heaven's sake, and stop looking at me as if I wanted to bite your head off."

  She moved towards a chair by the fire and sat on the edge, but her courage was returning.

  "You're in a biting mood, I think, Pendragon," she said softly.

  "Very likely — it's been quite a day, one way and another What did you want to say to me?"

  "Perhaps you've forgotten the date," she said and he turned to look at her, his cold eyes narrowed under the black, slanting brows.

  "The date is the thirteenth of March, exactly a month from the day you came here," he said. "Is that what you wanted to see me about?"

  "Yes," she answered, breathing rather quickly. "Our contract ends today."

  "I'm aware of that," he said. "Well, do you want to leave?"

  She was taken aback by the abrupt question, and, pre-versely enough, a little disappointed that there was to be no argument.

  'Yes," she said. "I — I don't think I fit in here." "Is that your only reason?" "Yes — yes, I think so."

  "Is it Keverne?" he demanded suddenly, his eyebrows meeting in a straight line.

  "No," she said, beginning to wonder what, indeed, was prompting her to relinquish so unexacting a post.

  "Doone, then?"

  "No, I'm very fond of Doone."

  "Then," he said, his mouth relaxing in a faint smile, "since Merryn's harmless enough, I can only conclude it's myself."

  Oh, dear Dragon . . . she cried within herself, and knew at last that it was true. She was only dimly aware that he had awakened an emotion which she did not altogether understand, but she knew that of all of them he had touched some response in her that was probably not wanted, and that she was no longer afraid of him.

  She looked up at him as he had seen her looking at Keverne and, for some unexplained reason, he wanted to shock her into an admission of dislike for him.

  "Well, what have you got against me? I may be disagreeable at times, but I hadn't thought I had treated you badly."

  "Oh, Pendragon!" she said and this time the tears overflowed. "You've been generous, and often kind. I have no dislike for you. You — you're as bad as Doone, imagining things."

  He bent down to touch her wet lashes.

  "You're crying," he said, sounding surprised. "In all the times I've probably snapped at you I've never made you cry."

  "Snapping doesn't do that to me," she said, trying to laugh.

  "What does, then? Women's tears to me usually mean temper and frustration."

  "You have been unlucky in your experience, then," she told him gently, and he put a hand under her chin, turning her face to the light.

  "Yes, I think I have," he said slowly. "Well, Alice, do you want me to plead with you? I've never done such a thing with a reluctant employee before."

  "Plead with me?" For a moment she had almost forgotten the reason for this interview.

  "Yes, plead with you, you stubborn, muddle-headed

  little creature! For all the encouragement our family motto gives me, I can't keep you any other way. Well? Will you change your mind until the end of the summer?"

  "On Doone's account?" she asked, feeling her first bold resolve begin to melt away.

  "No," he replied impatiently and unexpectedly. "On my own account."

  Her eyes widened into a green stare of amazement.

  " You? But you don't need me — you don't need anyone," she said and saw his mouth tighten as if she had hurt him.

  "I think I do," he said. "I think we all do. Perhaps, as I told you ouce before, you are the one appointed."

  "But then you were laughing at me."

  "Well, I'm not laughing now," he sad, his eyes suddenly grave. "How long do you expect me to go in this vein, you obstinate child? I'm not in the habit of pleading, as I said before. Well, will you stay?"

  "Yes, dear Dragon," she said, quite unaware of how she had addressed him, and was surprised by the sardonic humor which suddenly lit his face.

  "Did you see the smoke?" he enquired. "Or do you think you've got the dragon tamed — l
ike the unicorn?"

  "The unicorn?" she echoed, beginning to feel confused.

  "Don't you know the legend of the unicorn?" he asked, and seemed to find pleasure in the fact that he had mystified her. "Well, let me tell you. In the bad old days, when the Pendragons held power, when they wanted to catch a unicorn, they put out a gentle maiden as bait. Up trotted the first unicorn that came along, and trustfully laid his head in the maiden's lap — don't ask me why — and so he was caught. Foolish, isn't it?"

  "Perhaps it's kind of parable," she said drowsily, and he saw the dark smudges of tiredness which had begun to appear under her eyes.

  "Perhaps it is," he said. "Go to bed, Alice. It's been quite a day for you, too, hasn't it?"

  She got to her feet obediently. She was very tired, she realized; physically and emotionally, it had been a day to which she was quite unaccustomed.

  "Goodnight, Pendragon. I hope your hand won't keep you awake," she said politely.

  "It won't be my hand that keeps me awake, if anything does," he remarked, watching her walk to the door in her blue frock with its narrow waist and full skirt, and the demure ribbon round her head.

  "And Alice — I haven't said thank you. I like to think that, after all, perhaps the Dragon had a little to do with your decision to stay. Goodnight."

  Ill

  March, with its gales and rough weather, slipped into April and, at last, the spring had come to Polrame. Young shoots pushed through the salt-encrusted soil, the great rhododendrons were in bud, and Doone discarded her wheel-chair and walked with growing strength, and even ran, about the grounds. She could dress and undress herself now without aid and, under guileful guidance, scorned much of the help she had taken as her due before. To Alice, the child's rapid progress was a constant justification of her own weakness in agreeing to stop on, but she knew the weakness was there. Pendragon, after that eventful Sunday, seemed to revert to his accustomed position in the household and, if he was more considerate for Alice than before, it was not, she thought, because his opinion of her had in any way changed, and there was, now, Trelawny.

  It was only too plain that Trelawny meant business of some kind, Alice thought as the days went on and the girl became an accepted part of their lives, but she scarcely contributed to the peace of the household. She would join with Keverne in any grievance he might have against his half-brother, bickering and taunting until, suddenly, she would have a complete change of heart and side with Keir, using the self-same arguments in reverse to show them where her sympathies really lay. Alice found it very exhausting and wished Pendragon would give some indication of his own feelings, if he had any, but, beyond treating his cousin with a certain grim appreciation of her tactics, he gave no sign of knowing that she was at the old game of playing off one man against the other. Even

  Merryn had his uses. Trelawny snubbed his efforts to please her and was unkind about his obsession for his fish, but she made do with his company when none other offered and threw him careless favors when she thought it would annoy the others.

  "She's like that Siamese Fighting Fish," he told Alice one day when they were feeding the fish together. "Rainbow colored and iridescent, utterly exquisite — or this other one like Chinese lacquer red — see it?"

  She glanced at him curiously, surprised that he, usually so inarticulate, could put such poetry into his speech.

  "Do they really fight?" she asked.

  "Oh, yes. They fight with their mouths and their teeth are razor-edged. With the fish, though, it's the males that chase and kill the more plainly colored females, except in breeding condition."

  "How horrible!"

  "Not horrible — just mature," he said with a strange look, and she realized with a small sense of shock that in his own mute fashion, Merryn, too, must be enslaved by Trelawny.

  "Don't you mind — the unequalness of nature, I mean?" she asked, not knowing quite why she asked at all.

  "One accepts, I suppose," he answered, his brooding eyes following the dazzling passage of the fish he had pointed out to her. "Ifs unreasonable to expect everyone to be made in the same mould."

  "How wise you are," she said, feeling suddenly humble.

  "I was talking of fish, of course."

  "Of course."

  It was possible to admire Trelawny, Alice thought, but not to like her, and she envied Emma's placid resistance to the snubs that came her way. After that first day, Trelawny did not trouble to snub her cousin's paid employee. When she noticed Alice at all it was only with faint surprise that she should make one of their party at mealtimes, and it became a habit with her to demand small favors until one day Keir told her somewhat sharply that Alice was not employed to fetch and carry for others besides Doone.

  "Really?" Trelawny drawled, ignoring the fact that Alice was present. "Has she been complaining?"

  "No," Keir replied coolly. "Alice obliges us all when necessary, but you are scarcely part of the household, my dear."

  The angry color brought a vivid loveliness to her face, and she looked as if she would have answered back as she would have to Keverne, but she controlled herself visibly and said, pitching her voice to a deeper warmth:

  "Aren't I, Keir? Polrame has always been a second home to me, you know that. And now — well, my own home is very empty and very lonely since Dad died."

  "I know," he said, touching her hand as if apologizing for his own sharpness. "Come here when you like, Trelawny."

  "And you'll advise me, too?"

  "Advise you?"

  "About my holding in the mine. You and I hold the largest shares now, Keir — we should do something about it." She was the only one of them who addressed him by his Christian name, and it still sounded odd and uncomfortably intimate to Alice's ears.

  "What would you suggest we do about it?" he enquired smoothly, but his eyes had narrowed and she laughed suddenly and a little recklessly, displaying the strong white teeth which seemed to be common to all the Pendragons.

  "Darling Keir! There aren't so many alternatives, are there? Let me come down to the mine with you one of these days and talk business," she said, glancing up from under her lashes, and he replied with the suave assurance of someone accepting a challenge:

  "Why not? Let's make a start tomorrow and I'll treat you to a working man's lunch in the canteen and give the boys a treat."

  She seemed to spend a great deal of time at the mine after that, coming back with the men after the day's work to spend an evening talking shop with Pendragon, sometimes making him smile with masculine tolerance; sometimes winning surprised recognition for some unexpected piece of shrewdness. Then she would immediately change her mood and become inconsequent and teasing by turn, reminding him of things they had done in

  the past in which Alice could have no part, drawing that rare smile from him at some forgotten absurdity.

  Once she so far forgot herself to say, with an impatient glance at Alice: "Does your protegee have to sit with us when she's off duty?"

  His quick frown reminded her too late that she had transgressed, as he replied sharply:

  "Alice has a right to sit where she chooses in the evenings, though it can't be very amusing for her to listen to conversation from which she is excluded."

  "How touchy you are on the subject of Doone's poor Zombie," she said with a small grimace, and turned to Alice with the careless apology she might have made to a servant.

  "I seem to have been rude," she said. "I'm sorry. Will you run me home, Keir? I've stayed long enough."

  "Not tonight, if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do," he replied. "Keverne's still up — he'll take you."

  He did not immediately go to his study when she had gone, however, but stood with his back to the fire looking down at Alice.

  "Does she embarass you?" he asked.

  Alice had been extremely embarrassed, but more by her own tactlessness than anything Trelawny had said.

  "No," she answered. "I embarrass myself. I'm sorry if I've seemed to play
gooseberry, Pendragon, but I never know what to do these evenings. Doone is asleep, Emma with the baby and Keverne and Merryn are usually playing billiards."

  "What a sad list of reasons for playing gooseberry," he observed, then added sharply: "Don't be such a child, Alice! If I'd wanted you out of the way I wouldn't have hesitated to get rid of you."

  "No, I suppose you wouldn't," she said, confused by his rapid change of mood, and he smiled reluctantly.

  "That didn't sound very polite, did it? I must be catching my lack of manners from Trelawny. She doesn't realize she's being insolent, half the time, you know. She's had very little to do with women."

  "She hardly rates me as a woman, I imagine," said Alice with a grin. "Zombies aren't to be reckoned with as persons."

  His eyebrows lifted and he looked at her with a curious expression.

  "Do I treat you like a Zombie, then?" he asked, and she made a quick little gesture of repudiation.

  "Oh, no — not any longer," she said, remembering how he had broken down her defences the night he had persuaded her to stay. He must have been remembring, too, for he suddenly took her hands in his.

  "Where have you gone to lately, Alice?" he said. "That night when you unconsciously addressed me as dear Dragon, you seemed to see me as a person, not as your employer."

  "Did I call you that?"

  "Yes, you did, and I rather liked it. Where have you vanished to?"

  She looked down at his hands, still grasping hers, and saw the scar that he would bear all his life to remind him of that day.

  "I haven't vanished anywhere, Pendragon," she said. "You just don't always see me."

  He released her hands and put his own in his pockets.

  "Don't you think so?" he said. "It might surprise you to know that I'm usually aware of you. You and Emma — the gentle ones in the nest of dragons. Do you remember me telling you the legend of the unicorn?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "You said perhaps it was a kind of parable. I'm beginning to believe you."

  He was confusing her again and the weakness that he could cause to flow into her bones at such moments was returning to trouble her.