Dear Dragon

by Sara Seale

  "You know, Keir," she said conversationally, "your family have got you wrong all these years. There must be

  some hidden weakness in your nature that none of us suspected."

  He was hardly listening, but Alice remarked in a voice that was suddenly surprisingly clear and strong:

  "Do you mistake kindness for weakness, Trelawny? How unhappy you must be."

  "I — unhappy!" Trelawny exclaimed in genuine astonishment. "It's the sentimentalists who create their own miseries, not the strong, so be warned."

  "You can't warn people of what you don't understand yourself," Alice said and realized with a shock of surprise that, for the first time, she had entered into a discussion as if Pendragon had not been present, a situation which, in reverse, she was well accustomed to herself. Perhaps he had something of the same impression, for he enquired rather irritably why the brandy was so long in coming.

  Trelawny handed the glass to Alice with a derisive little lift of the eyebrows, then returned to the tray to mix a drink for herself.

  "When you've both finished with the double talk — we might be thinking of a night's rest," Keir said, getting to his feet. He put the basin and first-aid box on the table, threw a couple of used swabs on to the fire and stood looking down at Alice for a moment with a quizzical expression.

  "You've been broken in rather harshly of late to the ways of this menage, haven't you, Alice?" he said and Trelawny gave him a quick look over her shoulder.

  "What else has been happening to the poor girl — apart from Keverne's chaste salutation this morning, of course?" she enquired, and as she saw Alice look quickly away from Pendragon's amused gaze, her own eyes narrowed.

  " Well . . ." she drawled with an unmistakeable meaning and, as Keir whipped round on her, she held his eyes with deliberate mockery.

  "I think," said Alice, testing the soles of her feet carefully on the hard flagstones, "I would like to go to bed."

  "Why don't you carry her, Pendragon?" Trelawny jeered.

  With careful consideration for her sore feet, Alice

  walked solemnly across the room. At the door she paused; the brandy had given her a very warm feeling of assurance.

  "I" — she said clearly and unexpectedly — "would very much like to p-punch you on the nose, Trelawny."

  As the door closed behind her she heard Pendragon burst out laughing and her mouth curved into a smile of satisfaction as she went gingerly upstairs to bed.

  In the day-room, Keir stood waiting for Trelawny to finish her drink. The laughter still lingered in his eyes.

  "That I would like to see!" he murmured and she looked a little angry.

  "Silly little rabbit! The brandy's gone to her head, I imagine," she said.

  "Brandy can very easily go to your head when you're dead beat — not that Alice needs Dutch courage to make her answer back, as we've all discovered. What had you been saying to her, Trelawny?"

  "How should I remember? You don't become very conversational on a five mile tramp in the middle of the night."

  "But you'd hardly bargained for that when you started out, had you — or was that part of some plan for castiga-tion?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about. We wanted to see the bonfires." "Alice didn't."

  "Then why did she come? Really, Keir, I think you're being a little unreasonable about the whole business."

  "Am I? Oddly enough it was Keverne who suggested you might be up to something. Were you?"

  "Keverne's usually up to something, himself, even if it only involves keeping his hand in by making passes at one of your Zombies," she said spitefully. "Why should I bother my head to be up to anything with someone so negative as Alice Brown?"

  "What harsh terms you use. I hope you weren't so rude to her face when you took her joy-riding and ditched her on the headland."

  "I wouldn't waste my time," she said. "But you'd better watch your step, Pendragon. The girl has sickly ideas

  about romance and love and all that dewy-eyed nonsense."

  "And you never have?"

  "No, and neither have you. Oh, I don't imagine you've reached this age and remained celibate, my dear, but that's a very different kettle of fish, isn't it?"

  "Oh, very. How well do you think you know me, Trelawny?"

  "Well enough. We're alike."

  "Do you think so?"

  "Yes, we're neither of us fools enough to let our hearts rule our heads. That should make for perfect understanding, shouldn't it?"

  He placed his empty glass carefully on the mantelpiece and stood staring up at the mako in its glass case.

  "Would you call it perfect understanding when two people bicker and slam at one another?" he asked.

  She moved uneasily. She was used to a more violent mood in him and did not understand this reasoning forbearance.

  "Yes, when they both know what they are doing," she answered stubbornly. "What's got into you, Keir? All the Pendragons slam at one another. I couldn't hurt you any more than you could hurt me."

  He turned slowly to look at her and for a moment his eyes narrowed in the old expression of appreciation.

  "That's rather a terrible thing to say," he replied. "To be totally immune from the hurts of another surely spells indifference rather than understanding."

  "Not indifference, Keir," she said softly. "You mightn't be able to hurt me but I'd never be indifferent, neither, I think would you — but that's another story."

  "Yes — another story," he said and took her bare shoulders in hands that were not quite steady. You'd give so long as you got, Trelawny, and perhaps one should be grateful for that. Sex, to you, is natural, isn't it, even if it has little to do with love?"

  "And isn't that what you want, Pendragon?" she said, exulting in a change of ground which she recognized. "We are past the dreams and hopes of adolescence, my dear."

  His hands closed on her shoulders, drawing her to him,

  and, when he kissed her, she was aware of the savagery as something familiar, and did not miss the absence of tenderness.

  "You see?" she murmured when he released her. "Yes," he said, "I see."

  He began, almost at once, to attend to the locking up of the house, and she followed him round in her crimson, trailing dress, sorry that the night should be at an end, but confident that by waiting a little longer she would bring him to the point she desired.

  II

  To Alice, waking in her high four-poster in the morning, the day presented a soothing antidote to the alarms and excursions of yesterday. The sun was shining from a clear sky and the sound of the waves at the foot of the cliffs was a gentle murmur. The men would be back at the mine, Trelawny would be going home and the disturbing happenings of May Day could be regarded as a dream; but the dream persisted, she found, on going downstairs. Trelawny was proposing to stop on, she and Keverne were in the midst of one of their bitter quarrels over the damage to the car, Merryn's prized Chinese Paradise Fish had died in the night, and Pendragon, himself, seemed to be in a mood which boded ill for anyone who might cross him. He enquired casually for the state of Alice's blistered feet, but scarcely waited for an answer, breaking up the quarrel between his half-brother and Trelawny, and Merryn's lamentations about the loss of his fish with the reminder that there was work to be done and, in all probability, trouble waiting for them at the mine.

  "Oh, dear!" said Alice when the men had left. "How you all do go on!"

  "Don't we?" said Trelawny sweetly. "I shouldn't tangle with a Pendragon, if I were you, my pet."

  "Trelawny, will you ring up the garage at once and see about getting Keverne's car towed in?" Emma said with unusual firmness. "The repairs will be a long job, apparently, and in the meantime he will have to rely on Pendragon for lifts to and from work."

  "How tiresome for him, darling — Keverne does like his independence, doesn't he?" Trelawny said, but she got up from the breakfast table, nevertheless, and went to Keir's study to telephone.

  "I'm sorry, Alice," Emma
said, pouring herself some more coffee. "We still seem to have a hangover from yesterday. Did she — was she — unpleasant to you last night?"

  "Trelawny?" Alice looked warily across at Emma, wondering how much she suspected of Trelawny's intentions when the harmless-seeming drive had been proposed. "She was — warning me, I think."

  "Warning you?"

  "Yes. She wanted to make it quite clear that — no one must trespass on her preserves." "Meaning Pendragon?"

  "Of course. It was scarcely necessary, was it? I mean, I'm just an employee here."

  Emma's blue eyes were faintly troubled.

  "Alice-" she began, hesitantly, then changed her

  mind.

  "Dear Emma-" Alice said shyly. "Don't worry about

  me. I know my place." She said it with a wry little quirk of humor, knowing that Emma would understand, but Trelawny, coming back into the room at that moment, stood and regarded her with arrogant tolerance.

  "I'm glad to hear it," she observed silkily. "It's such a mistake, I always think, for a paid employee to get inflated ideas."

  "Trelawny!" Emma exclaimed, and seemed really shaken out of her usual timidity at expressing her own opinions, and Trelawny looked surprised.

  "I wasn't being bitchy," she said and sounded aggrieved. "I only mean to say-"

  "I shouldn't, if I were you," Emma replied shortly. "Alice, I should get Doone out into the sunshine as soon as you can. The day may not last."

  "Well!" said Trelawny when the door had closed upon Alice. "You're blossoming out, Emma. Is it really little Alice Brown who's bringing you all out of your shells? Pendragon in some queer fashion I can't quite fathom, you — even poor old Merryn babbling about the habits

  of his dreary fish. Tell me, Emma — I really want to know."

  "You wouldn't understand someone like Alice," Emma replied.

  "Does Pendragon?"

  "Pendragon? I wouldn't know what Pendragon thinks."

  "No, you wouldn't, would you, darling? Poor Emma — do you recognize a kindred spirit in simple, wide-eyed Alice Brown?"

  Emma began to stack the breakfast things. When her hands were busy, it always lent her composure.

  "Why don't you go home, Trelawny?" she asked. "There's nothing here to interest you with the men away."

  "Pendragon asked me to stay," Trelawny said and lit a cigarette. "There'll be trouble at the mine today, I think."

  "Pendragon will hardly need your help, if there is," Emma snapped and Trelawny gave her a slow smile.

  "Don't you think so? I could have an equal say in the affairs of the mine if I chose to exercise it."

  "Not while Pendragon's in charge."

  "Perhaps you're right. Still, that may all be altered one day, mayn't it?"

  "I don't know," Emma said a little roughly, as if the whole subject was distasteful to her. "But I do know that Pendragon would never let his affairs be run by a woman."

  "Oh, not in actual fact, of course," said Trelawny, dropping her cigarette ash carelessly on to the floor. "But money talks. Pendragon could do with that extra bit of capital — he might even buy Keverne out if you both still want to cut loose."

  "He couldn't afford to."

  "But I could, darling. Think about it, will you, when you too much dislike the idea of me as a future sister-in-law?" '

  She wandered out of the room with that casual, indolent gait which proclaimed her heritage as surely as the arrogant movements of the male Pendragons, and met Doone and Alice in the hall on their way to the garden.

  "Come with us!" shouted Doone excitedly. "Were you there when the brick came through the window? Was Pendragon mad? Did Keverne have a fight?How did you smash

  up the car? Oh, I missed it all! Come with us and tell me.

  "All right, sweetie, just for a little while, but we must be considerate of poor Alice's feet," she said. "She's not like you and me, used to country ways."

  "She can sit on a bench if she likes," Doone said carelessly. Alice had, so far, proved disappointing in her brief account of yesterday's happenings.

  "We'll all sit on a bench," Trelawny said cosily. "And Alice can tell you how Pendragon bathed her feet and even knelt to do it."

  " Pendragon did?"

  "It evidently surprises you as much as it did me," Trelawny said, with a sidelong glance at Alice's discomfited face.

  They had reached one of the rustic seats that bordered the rhododendron walk and Trelawny sat down, pulling the child carelessly against her shoulder.

  "He must have looked very silly," Doone said, and Trelawny replied: "Yes, he did rather."

  Alice felt a sense of impatience with them both which drove out her embarrassement. They were behaving like a couple of children and Trelawny should have known better.

  "You seem to think any act of kindness foolish and undignified," she said quietly. "I seem to remember the same ridicule when Pendragon got bitten."

  "And you bound him up — of course! Well, isn't that ducky? He must have remembered and returned the compliment. How soft we're all becoming with our cuts and bruises. I used to think you were the only one who could arouse Pendragon's chivalry, Doone, but then of course he owes you that, doesn't he, since he was mainly responsible for your illness."

  "We don't allude to that. I think there's been enough confusion already," Alice said quickly, knowing how easily the child could react to any encouragement to seize the limelight, but Doone, quite sharp enough to catch the disagreeable undercurrents in her cousin's observations, drew away from Trelawny's encircling arm and scowled fiercely.

  "I don't remember," she said glibly.

  "Yes, you do. Pendragon went after the mako instead of bringing you home."

  "That's what Keverne says, but I don't remember; I'd banged my head. And I don't like the way you're talking to Alice, Trelawny. I don't think I like you as much as I used to. I'm glad you didn't marry Keverne after all."

  She jumped up with a quick movement she would never have attempted a couple of months ago and ran from them down the cool alleyway between the shrubberies.

  "Well ..." drawled Trelawny with a short laugh of annoyance. "Doone, too! How do you do it, Alice?"

  Alice turned to look at her, no longer afraid of that hurtful, mocking tongue. Pieces of the puzzle, at least where Doone was concerned, were beginning to fall into place.

  "Trelawny — have you and Keverne deliberately tried to foster this aversion Doone has for Pendragon?" she asked.

  "It doesn't require much fostering, does it?" Trelawny retorted lazily.

  "You could have taken the opposite line and worked wonders. I've always been puzzled by the child's attitude when she was the one person who's always had his consideration. Why, when you say you're fond of Pendragon, have you encouraged Doone's dislike for him? He minds, you know."

  "I didn't say I was fond of him — I said he was mine. I've no intention, when the time comes, to be saddled with Doone all the year round. She'll be glad to go to school and get away from Pendragon, and in the holidays — well, something can always be arranged. Does that shock you, Miss Bread-and-Butter?"

  "Yes — yes, I think it does. And the others — how will you get rid of them?"

  "Oh, I'll find a way. They'll none of them break their hearts, you know, providing the road is made easy. Now, Alice, you know all my secrets, so you can see what you're up against."

  "I'm up against nothing that you could do to me," she said. "You can't hurt a person to whom you mean nothing, Trelawny."

  "Odd you should say that," said Trelawny, frowning. "It's what I told Pendragon last night."

  "Did you? Do you imagine you can't hurt Pendragon?"

  "I shouldn't think anyone could. He's hard as nails."

  "Oh, no, you're wrong. You mustn't judge by yourself — certainly not Pendragon."

  Trelawny turned to look at her and found she was vaguely disconcerted by that grave, green stare.

  "Have you really fallen for him?" she asked curiously.

/>   "Fallen?"

  "Imagine yourself in love, then. I suppose it's quite natural in someone of your type to lose your head a little."

  "You wouldn't understand the feelings of someone of my type, Trelawny," Alice said gravely. "Let's not discuss it, please."

  "I couldn't care less what you feel, and neither, I should think, would Pendragon," she replied. "All the same, spare him embarrassment, my dear child. Even the most heartless of us dislike being burdened with unwanted demonstrations."

  "I'm hardly to do that, whatever my feelings," said Alice politely and got up to go.

  "Tell me one more thing," she said, her thoughts already shying away from the truth about herself which Trelawny had unwittingly shown her. "What is Keverne's motive in setting Doone against Pendragon? He's selfish and possessive, but I've never thought him spiteful."

  "And that's another queer thing," Trelawny said on a note of discovery. "For all Keverne's success with women you never fell for him, did you — or did you?

  "No. You haven't answered my question."

  Trelawny smiled a,trifle sourly and she said, as she had last night:

  "What a tenacious mind you have — it could lead you into trouble. Keverne's motive, if you can call it by such a name, springs purely from vanity, my dear. He's been Doone's hero ever since he can remember. He doesn't like to step off his pedestal, even for a little girl — so Pendragon has to be the big bad wolf. Incidentally, since there's been so much letting down of back hair between us, you might as well know that it was Keverne who was responsible for going after that shark instead of putting in to shore, not Keir."

  "I see. Why has Pendragon always taken the blame?"

  "Because he wanted Doone to keep her illusion, I suppose. Come to think of it, there must be a streak of chivalry — or perhaps it's sentimentality — in Keir, after all. How odd!"

  Alice looked down and her green eyes were very bright and clear.

  "Why have you told me this?" she asked, and Trelawny shrugged.

  "I don't know. Perhaps because there is something fundamentally honest in you, in spite of the fact that you irritate me. I wouldn't understand about these things."