Dear Dragon

by Sara Seale

  The pressure of his fingers on her knee made her wince for a moment but he did not look up.

  "I'm told I made a great fuss about nothing. No doubt that's true," he said. "After all, I've no jurisdiction over you."

  "No, you haven't, have you?" she said, and he looked up suddenly and his eyes were almost level with hers.

  "Did you think I'd like it — seeing Keverne treat you like one of his doxies in front of me and my own men?" he demanded with sudden savagery. "Why didn't you slap his face?"

  She blinked back at him nervously. Her face was still flushed with sleep and little bits of gorse and bracken clung to her hair.

  "I suppose, not being a Pendragon, the idea never occurred to me," she said simply, and he reached out suddenly, taking her by the shoulders, and kissed her hard on the mouth.

  "That's for good measure. Now you may slap me, if you like."

  She sat staring at him, her lips parted in quiescent surprise. In all the events since dawn she had never thought the day would end like this.

  "How strange," she murmured, remembering Doone's random accusations which she had so hotly denied.

  "Strange that I should want to kiss you?" he said, and when she did not reply, pulled her to her feet in the bracken. "Well, if you don't intend to administer slappings, we'd better be getting home. Were you planning to hand me your notice tonight?"

  The abrupt question confused her, as his sudden directness always did.

  "Would you let me go if I did?" she asked, and he shrugged his shoulders irritably.

  "How on earth could I stop you, my dear child?" he said.

  "I don't know. You have before."

  "Against your will?"

  "No — I suppose not entirely."

  "Then the decision is still yours."

  " Captum Teneo . . . I take, I hold . . ." she said slowly and he gave a short laugh.

  "You take our family motto seriously, it seems," he observed. "But I haven't taken you — yet, Alice."

  "Yet?"

  "A figure of speech, my dear. If you've done with conundrums, perhaps you'll be good enough to step out briskly and get the damp out of your limbs. I don't want any more illnesses laid at my door."

  She walked briskly beside him, keeping up with his long strides with difficulty. She did not want to face Trelawny and the others for a family reunion in which she had no part, but her own mild rebellion for the day must be finished with and put away. Trelawny, at least, would see to it that she took her proper place again in the household.

  But when they were all assembled in the day-room to drink sherry before going in to dinner which, for this one night, would be lavish and ceremonial, Alice realized that yet again the mood of the party had completely changed. They were all effortlessly pleasant to one another and even Keverne made much of his wife, bringing an unwonted flush to her cheeks.

  The women dressed up for this occasion which had left Alice little time for changing into the one good frock she possessed, but she saw Trelawny's eyes travel over the stiff white folds of her wide, ballerina skirt with faint surprise, and knew that the dress was becoming to her. Trelawny, who was staying the night, looked arresting in something that was crimson and boldly fashioned, but it never seemed to matter what she wore, Alice realized, wholeheartedly admiring; in slacks, in rough skirts and sweaters, in tonight's more formal attire, she looked just the same; one did not notice her clothes.

  "Well, now, here's a genuine ingenue for you!" Keverne observed as Alice entred the room rather later than everyone else, but he did not speak mockingly for once and she was aware that Keir's observant eyes flicked over her for an instant's comprehensive appraisal and found her pleasing.

  When they sat down to dinner, it was at a table graced with candles and fine damask and Alice wondered if the addition of a more gracious formality could account for the change in them all, or whether Pendragon, in his unpredictable fashion, had read the riot act after the unpleasantness of the morning.

  Talk turned inevitably to the mine and the discontent that had been brewing there for some time, but, for once, their discussion was pertinent and amicable and, for the first time, Alice realized that behind that immovable front of his, Pendragon was troubled.

  "It's the old story," he said in answer to some query of Emma's. "The tinners were always the riff-raff out for themselves."

  "But there are no tinners, now."

  "No, but some of the old spirit persists. The quarry-men are better workmen and more content."

  "Supposing we were to let the mine go and just keep the quarry," said Trelawny thoughtfully, and Keir's eyebrows rose.

  "We?" he queried gently.

  "You and I are the principal shareholders — or had you forgotten?" she said. "You've always said the mine itself scarcely paid. Why hang on to it?"

  "The two are too closely linked. If we sell the mine who's to know if the new owner would work in with us or not?"

  "Well, of course, you'd have to be careful how you picked your buyer," she said, and gave him a bold, inviting look across the table.

  He returned the look with a tolerant smile and asked enquiringly: "You have ideas on the subject, then?"

  "I always have ideas, Pendragon," she replied a little mockingly, and raised her glass to him.

  When the meal was finished they went out to the terrace to watch the bonfires that had been lighted at intervals across the moor as soon as it was dark. The little beacons blazed merrily, lighting up the distant tors, and Alice exclaimed:

  "It must have looked like this the day the Armada was sighted."

  "Very much like this," Keir replied, smiling down at her, then his eyes became suddenly alert.

  "They've got one pretty near the house this year, Keverne," he said sharply. "Where is it?"

  "Round by the wasteland, if you must know. It's our own men," Keverne replied jauntily.

  "On Polrame land! Who gave them permission?"

  "I did. Where's the harm, Pendragon? They didn't make their claim soon enough and the other sites were taken."

  "You know quite well it's been my rule that no fires may be lighted here, and the men know it too. Do you want a drunken rabble breaking into the grounds as they did five years ago? I'm going to clear them off."

  They all followed him, Trelawny and the two younger Pendragons probably from curiosity, Alice because she did not want to be left behind; Emma had already gone back into the house, not wishing, seemingly, to take any part in possible unpleasantness. As they rounded the east buttress of the house, Alice stood, enjoying a spectacle which she had not witnessed since the Guy Fawkes days of her childhood; the bright glow and crackling of the leaping flames, the dark figures joining hands in a circle and the laughter and bursts of singing.

  As Pendragon approached the men, the laughter and singing died. Alice could not catch what he said to them,

  but she heard the angry murmurs in response and all at once she was afraid.

  "Why don't you go with him?" she asked Keverne fiercely, but he only shrugged.

  "Pendragon wouldn't thank us for interfering," he replied. "They'll listen to him, maybe. Merryn and I are no better than they are in their eyes."

  "You're Pendragons."

  "We're paid workers, same as they are — only with the unfair advantage of sheltering behind the boss's patronage."

  He spoke wit a bitterness that shocked Alice and she would have asked another question only at that moment, Pendragon seemed to finish his argument and, turning his back on his men, began walking slowly back towards the little group on the terrace. The men round the bonfire watched him in silence and, for one wild moment, Alice thought one of them might attack him, but slowly they began to disperse in little groups, until only a few were left to start dousing the flames.

  Keir paused as he rejoined his own party, and looked them over, noting with interest the expressions on their faces. Perhaps he imagined the disappointment in Keverne's, the grudging admiration in Marryn's, but Trelawny'
s look of disgust at being cheated of a new excitement was plain to see. Only Alice, standing there in her thin, ethereal dress, had fear in her eyes and her face was as white as her frock.

  "Have you been cheated of your fun, too?" he asked his cousin a little mockingly, but his hand rested for a moment on Alice's shoulder, giving it a brief, reassuring squeeze.

  "Very dull," said Trelawny unashamedly. "I had thought at least a brick, or even a black eye."

  They were walking back along the terrace and, even as she spoke, there was a crash of splintering glass above their heads and they looked up to see a gaping hole in one of the windows.

  "Well, you've got your brick," Keir remarked calmly, and at the same moment seized Keverne by the arm. "No! Take no notice. You're spoiling for a fight, I know, and

  that's what they'd like. Most of them have gone quietly, so let it alone."

  After that the evening seemed to have lost its zest. Trelawny wanted to drive across the moor and get a closer view of the other bonfires, but none of them seemed disposed to take her so she announced that she would borrow Keverne's car and go by herself.

  "On second thoughts, I'll take Alice," she said, her eyes suddenly narrowing. "We shall possibly find we have quite a lot to say to one another. Get your coat, Alice — you'll need it in that open sports job."

  "I don't think-" Alice began uneasily, but Keir

  looked up from a newspaper he was idly skimming and said absently:

  "Why not? The fresh air will do you good. But drive carefully, Trelawny."

  "Oh, I'll take good care of your ee-wee lamb," she said. "Come on, Alice."

  There seemed nothing for Alice to do but comply since Pendragon did not see fit to veto the suggestion.

  "Take good care of my car, too!" Keverne shouted after them, and as the door closed behind them, remarked with amusement to his half-brother: "Throwing the innocent to the lions, Pendragon?"

  Keir looked up with a frown.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, I don't imagine our Trelawny is taking Alice for a ride out of the kindness of her heart!"

  "You're talking a great deal of nonsense, as usual," Pendragon replied curtly, but the frown remained on his forehead.

  Alice would have enjoyed the unexpected drive if it had not been for her company. She knew, as Keverne had, that this sudden whim of Trelawny's had not been inspired by any thought to give her pleasure, and she waited in some trepidation for the girl to speak what was on her mind. But Trelawny was lost for the moment in the exhilaration of handling a fast car and did not speak at all. She pulled up at the side of the road as they came to each bonfire, but she never stopped long, and presently they were completing the circuit and travelling fast along the cliff road towards Polrame.

  "Don't try playing games with me, Alice," she said suddenly.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Alice answered.

  "Oh, yes, you do! You've dug yourself well in at Polrame — especially with Doone — and I don't say the temptation to feather your own nest while you can isn't perfecdy natural, but Pendragon's mine. Take poor dull Merryn and his fish if you want that sort of security, but remember Pendragon is mine."

  "Why do you want him? You don't love him," Alice said.

  Trelawny took a bend too sharply. A wheel glanced off a hidden boulder, the car shuddered as it was thrown across a rough gully in the road, hitting another rock, and the engine coughed and stalled.

  "Damn!" said Trelawny. "We've probably bitched the ignition."

  CHAPTER SIX I

  SHE pressed the starter but the engine turned and spluttered half-heartedly, then roared and died again. Trelawny climbed over the side and opened the hood, then peered underneath the car.

  "Well," she said. "It looks as if we've had it. I think we've bust the sump; oil's pouring out and if I drive on we'll probably seize up. We'll have to footslog home, Miss Alice Brown."

  Alice scrambled out on her side of the car and stood in the white glare of the headlights, her wide skirt blowing about her legs, her face lifted to the salt-laden breeze from the sea.

  "You weren't afraid, were you?" Trelawny said, ob-serving her curiously.

  "Oh, no — you seem to be an excellent driver," Alice said composedly, and Trelawny gave an exclamation of disgust and switched off the headlights.

  "Were you trying to frighten me, then?" Alice asked,

  and the other girl began searching the car for anything she might have left behind, then pocketed the ignition key and gave Alice a sidelong look.

  "Perhaps," she answered. "But there appears to be more to you than I had thought. Well, we'll see what the tramp home in high-heeled shoes will do for your morale."

  She slipped her own shoes off, well accustomed to running bare-footed on her native soil, and Alice fell in beside her, aware that her cheap, scarcely worn shoes already felt too tight.

  "You didn't answer my question," she said.

  "What question? For heaven's sake, Alice, I've had enough on my mind for the past few minutes!"

  "Yes, I suppose so. Keverne won't be very pleased, will he?"

  "Keverne won't care — he's done worse to his car, himself, before now. What was this question?"

  "I asked you," said Alice simply, "why you wanted Pendragon if you didn't love him."

  "For crying out loud!" Trelawny exclaimed, her hard bare feet covering the rough ground as surely as Alice's high heels impeded her. "What a tenacious mind you've got, and what a sickening streak of sentimentality! I want him because he's Pendragon, and love, as you like to call it, doesn't enter into it. I loved Keverne once, as you probably know, but he wasn't what I wanted."

  "And Pendragon—doesn't love count with him, either?"

  "No, my poor simpleton, so control your maidenly flutterings, if you have any. You're out of your class here if you're looking for romance, my dear child. I'd merely thought you were trying to feather your nest, for which I couldn't blame you."

  "What a queer expression that is," Alice said, beginning to limp. "I used to think it simply meant taking what you could to provide for the future."

  "Well, isn't that what you're trying to do?"

  "No."

  "No, perhaps it isn't," said Trelawny slowly. "But it makes no difference as far as I'm concerned. Pendragon is still mine and don't you forget it — not that he'd look twice at you, anyway."

  "No," said Alice again and the other girl came to a

  sudden halt, her dark, lovely face taut with exasperation in the moonlight.

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, take off your shoes!" she exclaimed. "Your feet won't be any more sore without them. At this rate we shall never get home, and you'll probably sprain your ankle into the bargain."

  Alice obediently took off her shoes. The pebbles and small flints on the road caused, as Trelawny had pointed out, no worse discomfort than the perpetual turning of an ankle, and presently she was able to walk on the verge where the short, coarse grass at least afforded some relief to her bruised feet.

  She had no idea of what time it might be when they finally reached Polrame. Trelawny pushed open the heavy front door and the two greyhounds, Bryn and Buckie, disturbed from their slumbers, ran, barking, into the hall. Almost immediately Pendragon followed them, his tie loosened and his hair ruffled as though he, too, had slept in his chair while waiting.

  "I didn't hear the car. Do you know the time, Trelawny?" he said, stifling a yawn.

  "You didn't hear the car because we left it on the headland and I've no idea of the time," Trelawny replied.

  The lethargy went out of him.

  "What do you mean, you left it on the headland?" he demanded. "Did you have a smash?"

  "No. I went too fast on that rough road, I suppose, and hit something. I think the sump's damaged — oil was simply pouring out. No doubt Keverne will be livid."

  For the first time Pendragon looked at Alice, and saw the torn, bedraggled state of her dress and the dark pools her shadowed eyes made in he
r white face.

  "Come into the day-room and I'll mix you a drink," he said sharply and, as she began to limp across the hall, he picked her up and carried her into the day-room and put her in a chair beside the fire.

  "Let me see your feet," he said and, kneeling, took one aching foot in its tattered stocking into his hand.

  "Take 'em off," he ordered and when, too tired to comply, she simply sat and stared at him, he ripped off her stockings with scant attention to the suspenders which

  snapped back from the torn silk and made her exclaim with pain.

  "Sorry," he said briefly, examining the cuts and abrasions with minute care.

  Trelawny stood in the doorway and watched them, flexing and unflexing her own strong bare toes, for she had worn no stockings and the soles of her feet were as hard as leather. For a moment her slanting eyebrows met in a frown very reminiscent of Pendragon's and she began, absently to tap her white, even teeth with a finger nail.

  "We both walked the same distance and over the same ground," she observed then, a shade mockingly, and he gave her a quick, impatient glance over his shoulder.

  "I daresay," he replied, "but you're used to running barefoot since you were a child — Alice isn't. Get me the first-aid box and some warm water, please. Her feet are quite badly cut."

  "Get it yourself!" she retorted. "You've never made this fuss when any of us have had scratches."

  He got up without a word and left the room and Trelawny wandered over to the fireplace.

  "Well," she said to Alice. "I've got you taped, now, my dear. You've got more guts than I gave you credit for, I'll admit, but make no mistake — you can't hope to compete with me." Trelawny moved to one side and stood leaning, splendid and arrogant, against one of the granite shoulders of the mantlepiece as Keir came back into the room with the remedies he needed.

  She watched with interested surprise while he bathed Alice's feet an anointed the abrasions; it was, to her, a side of him she had never known or, indeed, wanted, and she viewed with distrust Alice's apparent indifference to his reactions. It was beyond her comprehension to recognize the ultimate weariness of body and spirit in another.

  "You didn't treat the other Zombies with this consideration," she drawled and saw Alice's eyes fly open. Keir merely replied by telling her to pour some brandy, and she crossed to the tray of bottles and decanters and began leisurely to mix a drink.