by Sara Seale
"People have their own lives to lead, Pendragon. You can't force allegiance through your own standards."
"How do you know that?"
"I don't know. It's just — well, there's got to be more to loyalty than quiescence, I think. Perhaps you've ruled them too long, Pendragon."
"I never thought of it as that," he said. "Emma — what does Emma think?"
"Emma will stand by you, I know, but — Keverne's her husband."
"You've heard the old story of my part in that marriage, of course," he said. "Do you believe it?"
"I've only heard what Doone hints at," she replied gently. "I can't believe that you — forced the marriage."
"It was hardly a question of forcing," he said wearily. "Keverne had played about with Emma for too long, and she, poor girl, was not used to dalliance of that kind. Trelawny had no intention of marrying him and, when the break came, he was glad enough to turn again to Emma. Was I wrong, hurrying on the marriage, thinking that Keverne only needed to settle down?
"No, Pendragon, not according to your lights," she answered. "Don't blame yourself — Emma's content."
"And Doone — have I meddled in her life, too?"
She rested her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands.
"I know the truth about the accident. Trelawny told me," she said. "Trelawny?"
"Queer, wasn't it? Why have you always taken the blame for something that was Keverne's fault?"
"Because she idolized him, I suppose, and it's always sad to lose one's illusions. What did it really matter? She remembers very little about that time, anyway."
"What she doesn't remember, Keverne and Mrs. Biddle between them have invented for her. Doone's attitude to you might be very different if she knew the truth."
"Oh, well, what does it matter, now?" he said, and his eyes focused with difficulty on her face in the lamplight and she knew he was recognizing her as a person for the first time.
"How young you are, Alice," he said slowly. "How young, and yet, how wise. I'd like to think that — misconceptions are cleared up between us."
"Misconceptions?"
"What we've just been talking about. No wonder you used to look at me sometimes as if you really did see smoke coming out of my nostrils."
"There was never spite in you, Pendragon," she answered softly. "You came too young, perhaps, to the responsibilities of a ready-made family. There's been so little gentleness in your lives."
He looked startled, then he smiled with that sudden flash of tenderness.
"But you, Alice, have brought us gentleness, perhaps — the gentle maiden who was used as bait for the unicorn — remember?"
Another moth fell on the still little heap round the lamp and Alice moved uneasily. She did not want tenderness from him now, nor reminders of those rare, intimate times together; times so brief, so tentative, that Trelawny could not grudge them, Trelawny who did not want love, or the shy reservations of the heart.
He sat looking at her, observing the endearing irregular lines of her profile in the lamplight, the fall of the pale hair on her shoulders as she bent to flick some crumbs from the table and the innocent sweep of her lashes.
"You're very sweet," he said. "Very sweet — and so wholesome."
Her lashes flew up and she wrinkled her tip-tilted nose in a wry grimace.
"It sounds like a milk pudding," she said and he laughed.
"Dear Alice— you have such a literal mind," he teased.
"Dear Dragon — you have such a strange turn of compliment," she ecountered, and he got to his feet.
"Well, we'd better clear the table; it's getting late," he said.
They went backwards and forwards to the kitchens, and Alice was reminded of that first evening when he had marched her along the cold flagged passages and made soup for her while she dried out by the kitchen range. She could not have known then that he was one day going to take her heart and squeeze it dry, that for her the protective husband of Aunt Brown's imaginings was someone she no longer wanted.
"How solemn you look!" he said when, the last plate stacked in the sink, he turned to put out the lamp. "What were you thinking of?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? How can one think of nothing?" "Well, that first evening, then — how much you all alarmed me, and what a fright I must have looked." The light slowly began to fade as he turned down the
wick.
"A scared child, soaked to the skin, who stood up to the
dragon with spirit, for all that. Have you had regrets that fate cast you over my doorstep?"
"No, Pendragon. Will you marry Trelawny?"
"Why do you ask that?" he said a shade brusquely.
"Because of Doone. Because Trelawny wants to send Doone away."
"Perhaps I've come round to Mackinnon's theory that school would be good for her."
"Yes, I think so, too, but holidays, Pendragon. . . . She must learn to know you, to love you. She mustn't be fed on half-truths and — and misrepresentations all her formative years."
The light went out suddenly and they stood in the darkness, the warm, acrid smell of the oil heavy on the air.
"Come here," Pendragon's voice said out of the darkness, and she moved towards him and immediately felt his hands gripping her shoulders.
"Is it only Doone for whom you're concerned, or do you mind what happens to me?" he asked.
"I mind very much what happens to you," she answered. They were blessed by anonymous in the dark. She would, she thought, have replied truthfully to any question he might have put to her, even to declaring the state of her own heart, but he said nothing and just pulled her gently into his arms. He felt the lean hardness of his cheek against hers and the harshness of his shaven jaw which was already beginning to grow rough again and, without volition, her arms slid round his neck, clinging to him for one brief moment.
"Come," he said gently, putting her from him. "It's long past our bed time."
It seemed extraordinary and rather shocking to Alice that Keverne should stand by his refusal to go back to work until the strike was ended, but as the days went on and he hung about the house or went off on his own affairs in the car he had hired while his own was being repaired, it became evident that his threat had been no idle one. If Pendragon was disappointed, he made no comment in Alice's hearing, but Keverne, she noticed, made it his business to be out at the greyhound track most evenings, for which she was thankful.
Keir and his other half-brother returned tired and dirty from the mine each day. They were taking on any manual job that would assist the handful of men left to keep the place running and, to Pendragon at least, the work was familiar, for he had, Emma said, started at the bottom as a youth and experienced all the normal harships of a common laborer before stepping into his father's shoes.
"And the other two — didn't they start the same way?" Alice asked thoughtfully.
"No. Pendragon was more flexible than his forebears, perhaps," Emma answered. "It might have been better if — oh, well, they say we learn by our mistakes. Pendragon is having a bitter lesson."
"Then he minds?"
"Of course he minds. Blood, after all, should be thicker than water, and he's done a great deal for those two boys."
"But, Emma — have you no influence? You're Keverne's wife — surely he'd listen to you?"
"What Pendragon has ever listened to a woman?" retorted Emma with unusual bitterness. "Besides, it's Keverne's right to strike if he chooses. He's only one among many."
Alice did not understand much about the ethics of such matters, but she was shocked by this sudden division of a house against itself.
"I don't believe principle has anything to do with Keverne's attitude. He's only like a little boy showing off and cocking snooks at authority," she said indignantly and Emma smiled.
"But that's what he is, a little boy — hadn't you realized it? Merryn, for all his obsession with his fish, is more adult," she said gently and Alice felt reproved.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I have no right to criticize. It's only that-"
"It's only that your loyalty would be to Pendragon, whatever the circumstances, and I suppose you're right. Don't get too fond of him, Alice. There's always a reckoning, you know."
Those first days of May seemed, to Alice, to mock the unrest in the house. Summer had come early, a false promise, as Mrs. Biddle gloomily prophesied, but the days
were long and lazy like the days of mid-July, and the bracken grew high on the moor, and bees lent their sleepy drone to the small, tranquil sounds of summer.
Alice and Doone picnicked outside on the terrace and sometimes took their tea on to the headland or the moor. Doone was so much stronger now that it was sometimes difficult to remember that she had been ill. They wore cotton frocks and had discarded stockings and it would all, Alice thought, have been perfect had it not been for the trouble which clouded their horizon, for Doone was not happy.
"Are you sure, Alice, that Keverne isn't going to the mine?" she asked over and over again. "Quite sure, poppet."
"But he must stand by Pendragon — it's like a crusade."
"A crusade?"
"The Pendragons against the rest. Keverne should be the first to wave the standard and dare anyone to pull it down."
"Strikes aren't like that — banners and glory and knights in shining armor," Alice said, and the child's face puckered in disappointment.
"Aren't they? But Keverne would defend us from the enemy. He would never leave Pendragon to fight alone."
"It's not that kind of fight, Doone. I don't understand much about these things, but Keverne's free to choose which side he takes, so Emma says."
"But there's only one side — ours!" Doone cried with all the passion of someone dedicated to a cause. "Keverne couldn't range himself against all of us! Pendragon comes home tired each night, laboring in the mine — doing all the dirty jobs — even silly old Merryn! Why isn't Keverne with them?"
"Because," said Alice, knowing that the time had come to speak the truth which, before, the child would never have listened to, "your brother cares for himself. You've made an idol of him Doone, but you should begin to understand that Pendragon is the only one who cares for you."
"Pendragon? That's because he nearly killed me — because, except for him, I would never have been so ill."
"Nonsense!" said Alice, sickened bu this old half-truth which had done so much unnecessary damage. "Do you want to know what really happened? It was your precious brother who refused to turn back to land, not Pendragon. He cared no more for your well-being then than he does now. The shark was all that mattered."
Doone's eyes grew round and her dark, lovely face suddenly uncertain.
"I don't believe it! Who told you?"
"Trelawny. She was with you in the boat, wasn't she?"
"Trelawny!" The name seemed to settle all doubts and the child's face crumpled. "But why did Pendragon let me believe — why?"
"Because he honestly didn't think you remembered, and because he didn't want to destroy your faith in Keverne. But it's time you knew the truth, Doone, and stopped being so b-beastly to poor Pendragon."
They were both crying now, sitting by the little abandoned rockery where once before they had clung together and wept, and Alice took the child into her arms.
"Perhaps I shouldn't have told you," she said, "but — I've been so — so distressed by your behavior to Pendragon, and he minds — so much more than the others."
"Does he?"
"I think so. Try to get to know him, Doone. He cares for you very much." "He cares for you, too."
"Me? Oh, no — I'm just a Zombie." Alice tried to laugh, but Doone, with that strange perception that could suddenly lift her out of childhood, said shyly:
"You're unhappy, aren't you, Alice? I wish that you would marry him and stay here for always."
"He'll marry Trelawny. Isn't that what you've always told me?"
"Yes, because that's what everyone said, but she'd send me away."
"Who says so?" said Alice sharply. Surely even Trelawny could not have acquainted the child of her intention before she had some official status in the house.
"Oh, I don't know — people gossip," Doone said vaguely. ""You wouldn't send me away, would you, Alice?"
"No, darling — except for school if Pendragon agreed,
but that will never rest with me. I will be gone by the end of the summer, and you and Pendragons must be friends by then."
"No!" cried Doone passionately, but to which statement she had shouted denial was not quite clear until she flung her arms again round Alice's neck and said: "You're not to go! I won't let you — Pendragon won't let you, and you know he always gets what he wants in the end. . . ."
"But if he doesn't want me that won't make any difference," Alice answered tremulously. "Doone, you must be sensible. I shouldn't have told you all this, perhaps, but — I do want you to see Pendragon as he really is. Promise me you will be nicer to him . . ."
A shadow fell across them and she looked up to see Keverne standing there watching them.
"Well . . ." he drawled. "What a touching picture! Why are you both so tearful and who is Doone to promise to be nicer to?"
"Not you!" his sister snapped, glowering up at him. "You're a back-slider, Keverne — why aren't you at the mine?"
"Well . . ." he said again, and his eyes went to Alice with a certain malice. "Who's been telling tales? And what do you mean by taking your brother to task, you impertinent monkey?"
"It was you who was responsible for my illness, not Pendragon," she accused him, and his eyebrows lifted in genuine puzzlement at the change in her.
"Well, what if it was?" he replied casually. "As a matter of fact it was no one's fault in particular. Who was to know that you'd end up with rheumatic fever?"
"But you always said — you and Mrs. Biddle and — and Trelawny-"
"My sweet, you believed what you wanted to, didn't you? You had to be the centre of attention and you had to have a villain. Why should it have been me?"
"Keverne, please-" said Alice, scrambling to her feet,
but he cut short anything further she might have been going to say by taking her by the shoulder and swinging her round to face him.
"I suppose I've got you to thank for this, Miss Snake-in-the-Grass," he said savagely. "Why can't you keep your
fingers out of other people's pies? Are you trying to make trouble for me because you want to get on the right side of Pendragon?"
"I don't," said Alice unflinchingly, "want to make trouble for anyone, but it was time Doone knew the truth about you. You can't go through life being a cardboard hero — even to a little girl."
He lifted a hand and struck her sharply across the face with all the venom which had accumulated in him from her earlier rejection of his advances.
"You insolent little nobody!" he exclaimed, but the next instant found himself sprawling amongst the stones and tangled vegetation of the rockery.
"Have you taken leave of your senses?" Pendragon demanded furiously. "Now, I'll give you one last ultimatum. Get back to the mine, and put in a show of work, or get out of here."
Keverne struggled slowly to his feet, his dark face working.
"I'm damned of I'll go back till the men do," he said.
"Then get out! When you've made other arrangements, Emma and the boy can follow."
"So you're throwing us all out, are you?"
"Emma and the child are welcome to stay here as long as they like, but you and your insolence I'm not prepared to tolerate any longer. It's up to you. Go back to work or get out and keep yourself."
Keverne went, crashing through the undergrowth, and presently they could hear him whistling defiantly. Alice wondered if it was chance that had made him choose the Smugglers' Song.
"I'm sorry, Alice," Pendragon said quietly, touching the angry mark on her cheek with a gentle finger. "I won't ask you what that was all about; I will only apologize that s
uch a thing could happen while you are under my roof."
"He hit her, he hit her! And all because she called him a cardboard hero!" Doone cried.
"A carboard hero? Well, now, that was a very funny thing to say."
"No, it wasn't, no, it wasn't! She had told me about you,
Pendragon, and K-Keverne didn't like it . . ." she said and broke into fresh weeping.
"Told you what, sweetheart?" he said, his expression softening to one of surprised tenderness as she flung herself into his arms.
"I told her the truth about the accident," Alice said. "It was time she saw you and Keverne for what you are."
"Oh! You have great temerity, Alice Brown. Even when struck in the face you don't cry out. But you were crying before that, weren't you?"
"Alice," he said, "answer me!"
"Stay and comfort Doone. I'm going indoors," she said, evading his question. "And make a job of it, Pendragon. The pedestal's vacant now — you shouldn't have too much difficulty climbing up there."
The look he gave her was a strange one, but he said nothing. He made no attempt to stop her from going, but sat down by the overgrown rockery, drawing the child down beside him.
II
Alice found Emma in the nursery putting the baby to bed. She looked tired and worried and refused rather brusquely Alice's offer to help.
"Pendragon's home early," Alice said, feeling suddenly at a loss for words.
"Yes, I know. Why do you meddle, Alice?" The question was so unexpected that Alice was taken aback.
"If you mean by that, trying to straighten out some of poor Doone's confusion, then I'd hardly call it meddling," she answered. "What's Keverne been saying to you?"
"Nothing very complimentary to you, I'm afraid. Why don't you keep out of Pendragon affairs, Alice?"
"Doone is my responsibility while I'm here. She is the only Pendragon whose affairs concern me," Alice replied, and realized that for the first time in their relationship she was speaking coldly to Emma.
"Remember that, then. There's trouble enough at the moment without you adding to it."